


Worth the Trouble (On Hold)

by Peter_Yellowhammer



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Arguing, Awkwardness, Falling In Love, Feel free to disagree, Friendship is weird and confusing, Gen, I believe this interpretation of Javert is valid, M/M, Mystery Plot, Or maybe just, Paranoia, Philosophy, Self-Doubt, Slow Build, Sparse Profanity, Unresolved Sexual Tension, bizarre
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-06-08
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-14 08:25:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 43,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/834777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peter_Yellowhammer/pseuds/Peter_Yellowhammer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Javert hears familiar voices from nowhere (but it's possible he's demented). Javert travels to Jean Valjean's hometown to see if he can make sense of this. As it turns out, Valjean has lucid dreams of familiar events (but that's probably the Lord's way of guiding him). Both of them perceive the times of these people and events, but not the same conclusions. Javert wants to believe that he is his own person, and that the Inspector is putting thoughts into his head from another world. Jean wants to believe that he has been given a second chance.</p><p>Which is right? Could they both be right? Certain questions would have to be answered before finding the answer: Why is Javert older than he is supposed to be, assuming they were reborn? How trustworthy are these voices and dreams, if they were not? Why do Valjean and Javert act they way that they do, in truth? Are there other questions that must be asked? The only clear aspect to the situation is that neither of them should be locked away for their discussions of, as bystanders would call it, insanity.</p><p>Faverolles will feel the repercussions of their beliefs, regardless of what they are. One almost has to wonder if it's worth the trouble to believe anything at all!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Up to New Faverolles

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long prologue is long. I'm sorry about that, but it was necessary.
> 
> I want to make something clear: I have Asperger's Disorder (AD). I was diagnosed at the age of four by a certified child psychologist, and I took a test that determined I still show autistic tendencies. The references to AD in this story will be coming mostly from my personal experiences and sentiment. Whenever it doesn't, it will come from anecdotal evidence that I will weave into the story when appropriate (feel free to judge how successfully I do so XD) Also, every person's experience with AD, whether they have it or are witnessing it, is different. Finally, AD is a strange disorder to pin down, so I will be painting this portrait in broad strokes for the most part. 
> 
> If this sort of character depiction makes you uncomfortable, I apologize, but please consider all of these facts before dismissing this story. I think you'll at least find it interesting!

 

Javert's first memory is of looking through iron bars. But there was nothing to see. Pointless actions of that manner were obviously the consequence of a child's mind not being the same as that of an adult. But the puzzle of it plagues him to this day. Of all the activity and matter to observe around him, he never understood why he insisted on staring into the void. The impetus of this dreamlike journey, after all, started with the noise.

A disquieting din of low mumbling always resounded around him, occasionally magnifying into a horribly discordant wail, then only to be met with a croaking male's voice and a cudgel against bars to smother it back to the easier buzz. No matter how loud the voices around him were or became, none of them expressed anything other than torment or, befuddlingly enough, mirth at times. It was probably the false mirth that convicts presented to confuse each other. Nevertheless, any pleasant, soothing voices were too easily discouraged by the long-haired man that paced in front of and beyond his cell. The guard only addressed him before entering the cell in order to punish him for God knows what. And he slept on hay that was never changed after having to relieve himself on it.

Still...Javert has to admit today that it wasn't entirely unpleasant. He simply meandered in his cell and killed time between meals; a layabout's dream! Not that he was one, not even then: he preferred to sift through the coarse traces of harmony and patterns that persisted even in a place of that nature.

He snorts at the thought. None of those shrieking people would take the time to appreciate it. He would never deign to share it with them, as it would just go in one ear and out the other regardless.

All the jailed voices, hidden though they were to his small frame due to the angle the chamber faced, only became chaotic at very specific intervals, lack of a measurement of time notwithstanding. Javert remembered looking through the non-soiled part of the straw that pooled around him as the voices shifted, narrowing his focus into the solid kinks and structures he identified (wordlessly, of course) to contrast against the more gaseous misery of sound. Any deviation of the latter was usually explained by the presence and body language of the guard, which almost never changed. Even then, the noise held the same words in the same patterns – despite the fact that none of them became meaningful very quickly – and the sadistic brute of a guard only bothered the women if he ever...well. Javert could not do anything about that then, and he certainly cannot now.

It was always the same guard...

The punishments he faced were thankfully mindful of his youth (or perhaps they were just lazy), only lashing him a few times until he found the strength to pretend to cry. If he ever cried as a young boy, it was buried deep within memories that refused to surface. That signal was all he needed to make the ridiculous man go away, but it had to be after the lashes themselves; he was too scared to risk what change would be incurred by pre-emptively wailing for cessation. What little control and familiarity he had over those moments of agony, he kept.

...Come to think of it, he hadn't even realized the true intent of that guard upon the women until he was fifteen or so. That shouldn't have taken him so long. But he supposes he could attribute it to the circumstances that hindered him at _that_ particular stage of his life. No matter; it was a tangent.

He can find no recollection of food or water, so it must have been forgettable. Anyone would most likely tell him that is for the best.

All in all, his first home (Lord help him) was more predictable and dynamic than common descriptions of prisons would have him believe, and that made it curiously bearable. The police station's holding cell in this weird town, even from the outside, faithfully reminds him of this. His first day here led him straight there as if by a string. No, the living condition isn't what he hates about prisons.

He couldn't place exactly when he got out of there. The guard was pacing very quickly that day, and the other cell residents were unusually quiet. Javert's speech had presumably become coherent not long before (the stunted environment had taken its toll, no doubt). He tried to ask the guard if he could take a look outside of the cell. Javert was yanked out of the cell, dragged outside the building, undressed, put into itchy new clothes, stuffed into a burlap sack, and then lifted onto a cart. It must have worked, then!

Screaming did not benefit him, he fully understood that, but he could not help shrieking and thrashing at the violent change in his surroundings, at the unbearable force of transition upon his ignorant brain. But he adapted well enough; he could remember his senses dulling as the trip dragged on and on and even further still. They stopped to give him water every now and then.

It was amazing how the notions of maltreatment and negligence were beyond him at the time. Kidnapping as well; he should have been in an orphanage, not a prison. Of course, his code of ethics was years away from being forged or even outlined. But it is...well, amazing to see it so clearly now, when all he could do then was recoil at the chaos inside his head threatening to solidify and tear through his body. Javert feels as if he were possessed at the time, rather than genuinely expressing his soul. They were cleaning their hands of his illegal presence, and he was just worried about the lack of voices swimming around him. Oh, how he begged for order as a child when he held order as virtue in himself all the while! _That_ is what he finds amazing. But it makes little difference now; and besides, the savage emotions that dominated him aren't what he hates about his childhood.

The adult Javert spies the marketplace with trepidation. Is it _all_ true? Every last rumor he heard, each more fantastical and exuberant than the last? What is the purpose of this paradise iteration of Faverolles? New Faverolles...yes, that suits this place better. It is a good name. Javert dubs the town anew, and his mind eases. The merchants down the court would give him another clue to the puzzle. Whatever it is, the surreality in which he is submerged is shallow compared to the rest of that day from the cart ride to the alleyway. It sickly amuses him how easily his memories come to him now, in the face of so much novelty, as compared to earlier in his life, when mental clarity was his fondest desire.

It still is, yet...oh, the thought is not worth pursuing for now. His life is flashing before his eyes, so he might as well enjoy it.

The child Javert couldn't tell what was surrounding him and shifting underneath him, except that they were red, and the hay that _used_ to surround him was a far more preferable cushion. He missed it. Could anyone else imagine something that droll? That hay seemed like a dear friend to him before he had a notion of friendship, a spirit that tolerated his fixations with silence and resilience. Perhaps he summons the tolerance of that hay now whenever he is under duress, albeit detached from the item that created it. But at the time, he regarded the messy spread as a pacifier that he was denied out of pure insanity.

This particular revelation became especially poignant to young Javert as he, the bag, and all its lumpy contents were picked up and laid down on what he assumed at first was the floor of another cell. He didn't bother screaming that time; he was too tired. But the noises around him were foreign. Crickets, probably, he couldn't place it that well. He was afraid to come out of the bag. Scared of crickets! He should have been scared of squashing the apples that filled his lap and bruised his behind!

That was a lot of apples, though. He could only infer that the wardens were scared to have a child's death from exposure on their hands, and so they took some probably ill-gotten francs and cobbled together a rather pathetic survival package. Why did they throw him to the streets of downtown Nice in the first place? _Opportunity?_ When he had 18 years, he considered becoming a guard just to oust the bastards that believed such conduct to be acceptable or even slightly legal. Once he calmed down enough to poke his head through the burlap, he was horrified at the sight of brick towering above him. It looked absolutely alien, red and brown and crusty and crumbly and please let him go back to the hay and the guard!

Chirp, chirp, chirp.

He didn't have a name for anything in this place. But nothing could name him, either.

Rustle, rustle.

Javert picked up one of the red things and tried to calm himself by appraising it. It held little freckles in its skin, incredibly tiny, running up and down the pale red veil. They weren't unlike the cracks in the stone walls that used to bracket him! That was good. He poked one of the freckles with an overgrown fingernail. It gave, and yellow flesh was exposed. He had ruined the freckle arrangement, and this bizarrely made him sorrowful. Looking back on it, he was probably finding distractions from what had just happened to him. But he spotted a speck of juice flowing down the skin, and all notions of symmetry (of inhibition!) abandoned him as his fingers ripped into the apple. It hurt, his teeth were too soft, but it was the sweetest thing he had ever tasted. The core and seeds looked weird, and he didn't have the time to debate their venomous properties, so he threw the carcass at the scary wall. He was very, very hungry and very, very silly. He picked up three more and methodically repeated his savagery.

After he arranged the apples so they formed a rather laughable blanket within the bag, before he finally laid his back on the wall to fall asleep, he looked up to the ceiling. It wasn't a ceiling. It was a vast, tall lack of ceiling that threatened to draw him into its dark blue abyss. He could almost feel his eyes being pulled out of his head to fly among the...THAT. Javert could easily name it now, but it wouldn't explain the pure fascination that overcame him when he looked up. Not to mention what he saw up there every night would always defy explanation to someone as simple as him. In a way, the sight in the sky after the twilight hours would always be THAT to him.

He gaped at THAT until his eyes refused to stay open.

…

The merchants are happily greeting him as he walks through the street. He is a complete stranger, and they are inviting him to browse their wares without a single scrutinizing gaze. Only towns with no worries for the future could dare behave like this. Towns like this don't exist. What witchcraft could be at work to make smiles and laughter so easily summoned? Then again, he hardly has any right to accuse anyone of witchcraft. He doubts any of the folk here heard voices.

One would think that as soon as Javert got out of the prison, the voices that cloaked him would stay at said prison and not follow him. But that was not the case! Three days after being dumped in the alleyway – three days where the juice from the red things was his sole source of hydration – Javert finally plucked up the courage to peek outside into the streets themselves. Or rather, half of the apples were bad, and he was desperate to find some more. He took the bag with him for some magical protective properties the adult Javert couldn't imagine anymore. But it was a damn good thing he did.

...Wait! It was bothering him why not of the gamins tried to steal his apples beforehand. Yes, he remembers hiding in his sack from a group of the little blighters and making some god awful noise to repel them. Something between a wounded moose and a rabid...rabid...creature of some sort. Dog? Sure, it was probably dog-like. He used to make the same noise toward the guard before he learned it only earned him more lashes. Perhaps he innately realized that the children would be less rational than the lash-happy man, and indeed it halted their pursuit until they slowly turned to flee from whatever creature lurked in the haunted burlap. Anyway, he is losing track of his thoughts again.

Once out in the open, Javert almost recoiled at the new landscape before him. Dozens of people with no concept of who he was, masterfully navigating through their day as if breathing were a more difficult task. But he spied an apple stand, among stands for other presumed edibles, within walking distance of his alley. Clutching his burlap, he forced himself to wade through the ebb and flow of strange people. Each step became easier as he realized no one actually wanted to address him. They weren't like the guard, nor the prisoners. They were a strange, third type of people that he found pleasant in how optional they were. Or something to that effect.

In any case, Javert made it to the apple cart with no interruption. But he had to hide from the salesman as he realized simply taking them was not an option. The churlish looking man with dark circles under his eyes was protecting the red things from people who didn't give him some shiny things first. Ducking under his line of sight proved futile, however.

“You! Boy, stop lurking by my stock!” He remembers how raspy the man sounded.

Javert made to sprint back to the alley, but the man caught him by the collar of the itchy shirt.

“Not so fast,” continued the guardian of the red things. “Turn out your pockets!”

“...Turn out your pockets!”, responded Javert. He remembered his pants felt very warm at the time. The human body was very helpful in times of stress, truly.

“...What?”

“...What?”, Javert parroted again.

The salesman pulled him off the ground and up to where the two of them looked eye to eye. His eyes were green with a small sliver of blue in the left iris. Other than that, his premature wrinkles and shaggy, blonde hair made him look rather plain.

“This is no jest, churl.”

“This is no--”

“SILENCE.”

Javert understood that word.

“Now hold still.” Javert felt his lips almost move to repeat the phrase, but the force of the SILENCE was still reverberating. The magical red thing man dug through his trouser pockets and found...a slip of paper? When did that get into his pockets? The man began to read the message as best he could.

“'In...in case the...the'...fuck, what's this one? OH! 'In case the boy loses his bag, it should be known that his name is...is'...how the hell d'ya pronounce that?!” Javert was still three feet above the ground.

“...Monsieur...” The first word that stuck out clearly to him from the prison din. He was proud for having captured it.

The man put him down and handed him the paper slip.

“I'll make this clear just once,” the blonde man said while pointing to the piles of red things. “DO NOT. TAKE ANY OF THESE. WITHOUT MONEY. And don't you dare just repeat it, look at me, boy! DO NOT TAKE THESE WITHOUT COINS.”

The dark-haired boy had already given up trying to get the red things; the guardian was too aggressive, and he was too preoccupied with the paper slip. The man had slipped up on the last word. Words, yes, that's what these black twists were. The last word...he could almost hear it in his head...

_His name is Javert, ma petite. Do not stare at the inspector; you will cause trouble!_

“...Javert.” He tentatively held up the slip of paper for the man and tried to reference the last word. “His name is Javert, monsieur.”

The salesman gawked at him for a second.

“You can read?!”

“You can read?!”, echoed Javert.

…

Today, Javert walks away from the marketplace and toward the residential area. He wonders how many people here can read, or are learning to read, with the changes that swept the area in just two short years. The fact that a simple apple farmer around Nice could read so much to him was genuinely remarkable. Perhaps it was something the man always resented, not being able to read like the bourgeoisie. Or maybe he had no choice but to learn some words upon the threat of receiving legal notifications that he would fail to comprehend. It is pointless to him now to ponder it, yet he enjoyed analyzing the little conspiracy.

The easily flabberghasted apple guardian made a tentative agreement with the young Javert: he would try to teach some words to the man, and he would get some money for food in exchange. It took some time for the man to convey exactly what was intended; the two of them got their fair share of odd looks from the passersby. But he succeeded and was rewarded with Javert looking down upon his pants to realize how damp they were.

The very idea of teaching anybody anything nearly made him fold in on himself. The paradigm was too sudden, too harsh, and too unfamiliar to him. But the salesman seemed eager to keep his teacher from retiring, and so Javert received a number of sours sufficient for a meal as incentive and as a sign of their codependent covenant. If the man shared his name, Javert cannot remember it.

It was probably Jean.

“You can learn some words, too, young man. This is nothing but well news!”

The unlikely linguist looked over the slip of paper again, trying to make sense of the messily scribbled letters. 'Javert' stood out to him, it was his name. It was his name. It was his name. It was his name it was his name his very own name his nom de vie...But the other letters? The woman's voice that spoke to him earlier was offering no help. Perhaps he was only dreaming that he was standing in a marketplace, and he would wake up to hear the murmuring of the prisonfolk once more.

_In case a prisoner becomes unruly, a swift hit atop the head or upon one of his shins will subdue him. That's simple enough, no?_

_Yes, sir._

_Good. Now stop asking me and go subdue 34368 before he finds another sodomy victim._

...Well, that wasn't very helpful. That didn't sound like what the man with the red things said at all! What was he going to do now?!

_Are the apples good, monsieur?_

_Test for yourself, inspector. Red as blood and juicy as meat._

_I'd prefer not to associate those items, if you would._

_Heh! Yes...I sensed you were a man with little color in your livelihood._

Javert felt some peculiar emotion bubble within him at the last statement. He felt angry. But why? What he said didn't even make sense!

_Don't speak nonsense, Madeleine. My livelihood bears the colors of France._

Then again, the other man seemed intent on being bewildering himself. And yet...

Javert pointed at the mass of red things and declared: “Apples.”

The apple man tilted his head like a dog's.

“...Indeed. These are apples. Where do you live, boy?”

“Where do you live, boy?”, repeated Javert. He wasn't sure this time if it was automatic or if he felt like teasing the man a little.

“We are not doing that again.”

Javert smiled.

“Dear Lord in heaven, what have I agreed to now?”

Why the man needed a small half-breed boy such as him so desperately was an odd notion to grasp. Perhaps the man had secrets that weren't accessible to a...seven-year-old? Eight? He has no point of reference of which to be sure. But he does have one highly significant one, one that changed and still changes how he sees the world around him.

Three weeks into the lessons, for what they were, the apple farmer had escorted him to various points in the city to show all the signs and propaganda posters they were to decrypt. Javert remembered that the farmer's son seemed apprehensive about taking the sales instead, but the boy's father made some sort of promise involving Javert as a reward. That promise, whatever it was, never became realized. But that was okay. He had nice, pleasantly textured coins he could jingle in his pockets as long as the apple man was with him. The jingle was enough to keep his thoughts away from the optional people, who liked to make weird faces at him.

They were making good progress, slowly but steadily adding to their respective lexicons. The voices were becoming a little louder, so that made it easier to understand what they were saying...even though the emotions they projected upon him were also getting stronger. While reading a newspaper, they found the obituary section and tried to determine who had died. Javert read the eulogy of some Jean Courant and started laughing.

“What the devil could be so funny, boy?! The man died!” The apple farmer looked genuinely disgusted but also terrified.

“Ha...”

“Does even death seem strange to you?”

“...Perdon?”

“Javert! Why are you glad at this man's death?!”

“O-Oh. Monsieur! I'm so glad that it's not me.”

“...”

_Did you just stifle a laugh, Inspector? Here, of all places?!_

_Please forgive me, Monsieur Commisaire. Graves are a funny thing; they always remind me that I'm only alive by choice and chance. And I find that nothing short of hilarious!_

_...I believe I will prefer you to deliver your reports to my assistant from now on._

Later that day, they spied a royal notification upon the bookstore they usually ignored out of pride (and to avoid mingling with those whom could afford books). That same pride led them to at least attempt the complicated script hung in front of the window displaying rather thick volumes of information. Probably mostly useless information, he thinks now.

“'In the'...hmm!” The apple distributor made a point of grunting in amusement rather than consternation. New words were puzzles instead of obstacles. “I get the wild feeling it's a phrase we hear often. 'In the'...what starts with those two words?”

Javert found himself looking at the optional people. Their voices blended together too smoothly to pick out any phrases, but it was the only place he could think to investigate. He tried to pick one particular person, one of the tall ones like the apple farmer, except not grimy-looking. He settled on what he would deem now to be a fetching young mademoiselle peering at the book selection. Her braids were very well done.

Braids? The girl didn't have any braids! Did she? Surely Javert is thinking of the maid walking out of the two-story house at the end of the block. Her braids are demurely done. Where is she going? Why does the image of the bookworm girl from his childhood insist on donning her with nonexistent braids? This is a memory, not a dream to be re-written at a whim! Good Lord, if distortion of mind is this easy and potent upon him, then just how much of this forced recollection is accurate?

Never mind. The girl was eyeing one particularly thick tome with a most likely equally pretentious title. But she seemed thrilled at the prospect of owning it. Javert liked that she liked it. Nowadays, he thinks he finally understands why. She liked something that was simply there, not because it was to be used for something. Young Javert decided to ask her for help. But he couldn't do it directly, not with what they were doing. It was too distant from her own task. They had to meet in the middle...

“Perdon? Perdon, mademoiselle? What year is this on the paper?”

Or he could just fail abysmally. That would earn him the same result: a bewildered and slightly annoyed expression on an otherwise quite pretty face. He is sure the apple man was similarly annoyed. But upon comprehending the question, she seemed to relax and adopted an expression of pity.

“Ma petite, that says the year of our lord one thousand, seven hundred and seventy eight. Seventeen seventy-eight!” She beamed at the expected understanding to burst from Javert. But what she received instead was unnerving for all involved.

“That's not right,” Javert said without realizing it. But as he said it, he knew it was right. The year was wrong. The year had to be wrong. That paper held a false year upon itself, and in the name of the King! Surely this would not go without consequence!

“Javert...”, interceded the apple farmer, “mademoiselle is correct. This is the year 1778.”

“You are wrong.”

“I am not wrong, and neither is she, boy! Stop contradicting me!”

“You are wrong. This year is not right. Stop contradicting me!”

The book-loving girl apparently decided that Javert's education would have to wait until the boy was of sound mind. She went inside the book store without another word.

But that was when it started. The year was indeed wrong. That year and all the ones after it had to be wrong. And yet they insist on contradicting him to this day.

Javert and the apple salesman spoke no more of the Bookstore Incident of 1778. They found some new items to read around the judicial district (only by grace that they looked vaguely like father and son were they not questioned, Javert reflected with a snort) and then walked to the man's temporary home in Nice where Javert was allowed to stay. The boy doing sales for his father was eagerly awaiting his brother there, who was making back and forth trips to their farm to bring more apples as they were harvested. It was on the edge of the city. The apple farmer offered to help carry Javert part of the way, but the idea of it made him blanch and squeeze his burlap bag. It had become an unconventional stress toy; a perfect inversion of its original intent! The beauty of that change is still very appealing to him.

The house had a Bible there which housed a high-pitched woman's voice for Javert: thousands of words became available to him and his peculiar student. Who was she? She sounded unpleasant but not unkind...? Javert could not hear her voice in any other capacity than through the good book. Perhaps she was trapped there.

As a young adult, Javert deeply treasures being able to go to a home where he can relax and keep away from curious eyes. But as a confused child, keeping still in a stranger's house proved to be a frustrating challenge. During supper, Javert was eager to partake of the little bit of food (bread was the common choice) he had bought, but he liked to do so while pacing around the table. The three apple tradesmen found this to be unbearable. The moment he started doing it, he usually heard something along the lines of “Sit down or we'll make you unable to walk!” If it took that kind of threat to make him sit, he must have been quite stubborn. Was he? Was he truly stubborn, and is he still by today?

In any case, this habit of his was what led to his revelation about the true nature of trust.

Javert stood beside the apple cart one day and held out an apple toward the tide of optionals, tentatively trying to help boost sales. Thinking back on it, he would recoil at some small child trying to manipulate him into buying food. What a transparent crock! But the salesman seemed to find no problem with this...for a while. Javert managed to sell five apples before the salesman rewarded him with a piece of ham. Javert started to eat it while pacing back and forth beside the cart, managing to bump into exactly three people. None of them were content to buy anything after the affronts, nor were the witnesses...and therefore nor were the associates of the witnesses.

Truth be told, he can't see today what is so troublesome about it. There is no law against it. Surely the Mosaic Israelites needed to walk and eat at times. It makes sense not to stay in one place and eat, especially when food is so easily stolen! If it's not that simple, then it very well should be! If others didn't wish to bump into him, then they should watch where they are going. Nevertheless, the child Javert obeyed the farmer's rule as best he could at the house, and he is careful as an adult not to pace while eating (in front of others). But sometimes he just sits down to eat while alone, anyway. Funny little habits.

The farmer snapped and snatched the ham away.

“Idiot child!”, the man whispered with a face redder than the fruit he guarded. “You're scaring the customers away; you already make them nervous just by being here! _I told you to stop this madness!_ ”

Javert did not parrot him. But he made a grab for the ham that was rightfully his. He took half of what was left.

“...We are done,” stated the would-be guardian.

“Monsieur,” challenged Javert. If he were an adult, perhaps the statement would have been worth more pause.

“We have taught each other well. But you will ruin my business if I continue to associate with you. _You have what it takes to find your own home now._ Take your ham and go.”

Those were very formal words, Javert thinks now. Perhaps the man thought more highly of his younger self than he believed at the time. But it made no difference. Javert weakly threw the ham into the burlap and padded toward the alley that welcomed him before. The land and its fruit were what were granted to him, not its people. Why would the apple farmer be that different from the guard? The man even beat him for pacing one time!

Child.

It was time to abandon the convenient scruples of youth the farmer and the woman's voice tried to teach – submission, prudence, trust, forgiveness – to make him vulnerable. Javert found that it was very easy to do so.

Javert actually hates ham now, funnily enough. It's too slimy.

It was fine. He had THAT to look upon that night. And THAT, or even THOSE, didn't even need a name or a lesson tied to it or them. The man who spoke the most often told him what they were, and he didn't care. THAT was always the same, no matter how much it revolved around the centerpiece. He saw a vision for what patterns THAT formed, and he marveled at them all every night. His sleep schedule suffered because of it, but no matter. They were always the same, always the same, always. So beautifully simple, patiently circling the master light without pause or haste. If he ever doubted God's love (and he did), he would and still does look up. Upon the ceiling of the night sky, He paints the souls of the saints and sinners in the brightest light. Is it guidance? Javert can never presume to know.

As Javert circles the residential area for the second time, he realizes that the episodic part of his memory has ended. Yes, after that day, the events of his life started to blur. His struggles to live were predictable: do an errand for some food, sneak back to the alley to eat it, scare off the gamin that occupied the alley, eat the food, sift through the voices to find some other useful words. Javert found that if he closed his eyes when they spoke, he could see faint images of the people speaking. He collected the visions and the voices piece by piece, finding that these people had valuable advice and examples for how to survive. The man from whose eyes he saw subdued small children, grown men, thrashing women, whomever he needed to ask questions! He gradually applied these tips to himself. His punches became more accurate; his posture became straighter yet more responsive; his muscles developed, especially as he started becoming a man; his quips toward his enemies became even more bizarre and disorienting, by design; and his alleyway became known as Javert's alleyway to those it concerned. Nice itself was becoming a home to him, flaws and all. But what horrid flaws! If only he could scrub them away, purge their pervasively itching presence around his tiny niche. Misfortune!

Most of all, he was discovering the most blessed freedom. Not only did the experiences of the people speaking to him nurture his survival, but he found the disorienting and frightening nature of new people (and new things people said and did) didn't matter at all. What mattered was whether or not they were going to be peaceful or not. Javert waited for the actions of the cleverer thieves meaning to snatch his hard-earned food and clothing, or...something else that he wouldn't understand until he was wiser. He hated and still hates thieves more than any other type of criminal. But what objects they steal isn't what he hates about them. Tangent again, dammit!

Javert was better than them. He was exactly the same as them, just as desperate, but he took the better path. His food was hard-won, his attacks were in defense, and his failures were faultless. When he saw a chain gang featuring one of the men who tried to...'steal' from him, he knew that was where the man belonged and where Javert did not. 'Behind bars' was the phrase, and it seemed fitting that they would go to where he was born...and stayed...for some reason. And he was duty-bound to deliver punishment to those unscrupulous bastards who still walked freely, regardless of the fact he was eager to perform it. The man in his head told him so. He would happily look from the other side of the bars to see his adversaries cooped up with the hay that held no secrets for them.

Even now, it was a comforting thought.

Wait...there was one clear episode of his life left. How could he forget? When he was definitely a teenager, Javert decided to stop hiding from the police that kept patrolling past his alley and find where they were stationed. They weren't pestered by thieves; they arrested them and made sure they couldn't do it again. They weren't reproached by the optionals; they were respected for what they did in the name of the public. Between being a freelance foot stool and a defender of justice, the latter seemed much more appealing. But could he make the cut? He had done no wrong, and so he knew it was safe to walk among their number. The officers standing outside the Palais de Justice made no effort to stop him from coming inside.

Why did he not think of that moment of them all? It changed everything! Very troublesome. Hmm. Remembering his childhood always felt different than remembering his adolescence; a different emotional signature. That must have been why.

Unsure of whom to ask the question, Javert strode straight to the reception as calmly as he could. He clenched his shaking hands into fists and made sure to keep his posture straight and undaunted.

“Perdon, monsieur? I wish to become an officer of the law. To whom would I speak, for this?”

The desk sergeant stared bug-eyed at the undoubtedly ragged Gypsy boy. It was highly unusual, but Javert had been preparing for the shock of asking the question. He loitered around the Palais as much as he could without drawing attention, rehearsing the query down to the tonal shifts in his voice. The other voices gave him a helpful reference: the Inspector was always stern and unyielding in presentation.

Of course, that didn't help how he would be received. By the receptionist. Javert winces at the suddenly discovered pun.

“Mmhmm,” responded the brown-haired man, probably in his thirties. “You're awfully young. How many years do you have, son?”

Javert did not expect this. He should have expected this. Why did he not expect this?!

“...I...monsieur, I...”

Stern and unyielding, indeed.

The desk sergeant grunted. Why did the man call him 'son'? They weren't even related in any way!...Were they?!

“I should have expected that. Never mind, never mind! Can you read, boy?”, the desk sergeant asked with a weary tone.

_I can read enough to dictate the new laws, monsieur. Or would you rather I read the titillating dialogue of that smut you're hiding?_

_Y-You have made your point, Javert!_

_It is only the point of a pen._

__You are...what? That...there is no law against this particular book, Javert._ _

__I never said there was. It is still smut._ _

Stern and unyielding. No smut in sight. Whatever smut was.

“Yes, monsieur. I can read very well.”

“Oh?”

Javert felt irritated. He had to repeat himself for posterity. No one should ever be  _forced_ to repeat one's self.

“...Yes, monsieur. I said I can read. I do not lie.”

The desk sergeant raised his left eyebrow. Both of them were very bushy and carried specks of dandruff.

“Very well, then. Follow me.”

Boldened at the step forward, Javert walked with the desk sergeant to the record archives. At the front was a copy of the laws currently in effect, dozens of pages long.

“Read this.”

Javert staggered.

“All of it, monsieur?”

“...Don't be daft, boy. Just start reading from the top.”

“But monsieur--”

“ _No, you do not have to read all of it!_ Just...just enough for me to see if you're telling the truth or not.”

“Well, how much is that, monsieur?”

The desk sergeant lost his patience and shoved Javert toward the list. He remembered this kind of instruction from the apple farmer: _**if the man shoves me forward, then I must do as much as I can, or until I am stopped.**_

“Just pick one and read it out.”

...Or that. That worked, too. Javert scanned the list on the first page, trying not to let the items form a wall of nonpassage and failing. He could make sense of them, but...well, he had to pick one! The would-be lawman couldn't even dictate one law of the countless collection! That was, until he found one fairly short statement that seemed recently penned. As Javert glanced at it, the words resounded in his head by the voice of the Inspector. All he needed to do was parrot the expert.

“His Majesty the King Louis the Sixteenth hereby decrees in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty five that all handkerchiefs made in the state of France must henceforth and forevermore be cut in the shape of a square,” said Javert without pause.

...That was a law?

_A rather useless declaration, but the crown may demand it as he pleases. What's the next one? A stipulation for how many seeds may be found in the core of an apple? What would the punishment for that be, I wonder...?_

_Javert! You are mumbling again, stay quiet as you study!_

_Y-Yes, monsieur!_

_A guard like you will never be a policeman without respect for the code. Even the 'odd' ones are beyond our judgment._

Javert...that was the Inspector's voice. Inspector Javert...Javert belonged to the police...Javert was a guard?

A GUARD?! Those putrid thieves of the peace of cell dwellers, regardless of their actions?! Those...what the devil did this mean? Was Javert supposed to be a guard, and an old one at that? Who was Javert?

It had been a while since his auditioner spoke.

Javert turned around to see the desk sergeant open-mouthed and staring at him.

“That...that was perfect,” said the man with a tone of fear. “W-Well done, monsieur...I never asked your name, perdon.”

“Javert.” The name felt heavy upon his tongue. His stomach churned.

“I see. Javert, that's...that's not a name I've heard before. A-Anyway, I am Desk Sergeant Jean Valjean, young man, remember that! I'll refer you to the commissaire for possibly becoming an informant. That will be your first step.”

Javert tried to listen, but his thoughts ran even wilder than usual. No, no, he had to think sensibly. Javert was not a name he invented: surely someone else could have borne it! This 'Inspector Javert' had to be a separate entity from himself, nothing more than a voice in his...in his head...

Did other people not also have voices in their heads?

...Jean Valjean? The name made his chest constrict into a bonnet's knot.

...Oh, dear.

Oh dear oh dear oh no no NO.

His name was Javert, and he belonged on the moon.

Javert felt the room spinning around him; great, what else could go wrong? Would he be struck with the plague now?! Would he lose the permanent teeth he guarded so carefully?! Perhaps he would be fortunate enough to--

THUD.

…

And that was that. Javert was woken up by the commissaire himself. He explained to the man that he was 'simply too tired from having to run errands all day'. Commissaire François seemed to accept this and made him an informant on the glowing recommendation by Jean Valjean. The other Javert roared how the knew the truth the whole time, and then whispered helplessly about how it couldn't be true, that it must have been a cruel joke. Javert was certain jokes were supposed to be funny, so it couldn't have been that.

Javert spend the rest of his years in Nice as a spy against petty thieves, then a spy in a factory that sheltered a child molester, then a true blue policeman, and so on and so forth. He saw the way the Inspector tried to act in his own covert missions and learned from the man's mistakes. Nothing else outwardly significant occurred. Nothing at all.

As he learned the law, he anchored his churning mind upon it. The law didn't even spin around a central point; the law was completely stagnant, save for the whim of the King. Semantics linked together like branches to a great tree, yes, it was magnificent. He used the paradigm of referential navigation to muzzle the angry voices inside his head. More specifically, Javert did what any good spy would do: gather information and make a decision. He swam through the mess of voices connecting visions and thoughts together. Over time, the truth of the matter became at once clearer and more hopelessly vague.

This other Javert had lived an entire life. These cognitions could only be his memories.

This Jean Valjean that wasn't the sergeant was his nemesis. The man had turned from a typical, despicable thief into a monster that played with trust and respect like a wild dog would with a ragdoll.

He himself found so much common ground with the other Javert that it was completely possible that they were one and the same. This became especially considerable upon retrieving the moment of death, which was very specific. It took place in the nineteenth century.

Javert was looking into the future this whole time.

Gypsy. Abomination. Demented. Fortune teller. Prophet. God. Dead. Reborn.

Mother.

Two things were especially strange, really. Jean Valjean made him almost unbearably angry, and yet oddly crushed and defeated. Yes, he saw that the Inspector had failed to bring him in for a final time. Yes, he saw the revolution, the other one, the pathetic waste of life.

It seemed France wasn't meant to duplicate America's success. Then again, was that a bad thing?

Tangent.

The boy saved by the thief-demon seemed to undo him, along with granting the Inspector one more day to live...because the man stole without proper consequence. Perhaps he was a real demon. If other Javerts were out there beyond this time and space, or if Javert had occurred twice, then who was to say? The years were still wrong, after all! Perhaps the Terror would be preceeded by the Rapture this time!

Frustration.

The other thing...it was hard to define. Javert decided not to define it, not yet. He still has yet to do so.

Javert was not supposed to exist in the year 1778 or any year before that. He had, upon a rough guess that was based on the rebirth theory, gained at least nine years before he was born the first time. He could not even begin to prove this to anybody.

That was not the other especially strange thing. But it probably should have been.

Valjean was detestable, and yet Valjean was beyond reproach. Valjean was two people at the same time. Javert was two people at different times.

??????????????????????????????????

If he was not careful, then he would die a second time from sheer confusion. Or just the one time. Three or more?! Javert needed and still needs clarification.

A few years into the Revolution proper, rumors were spreading about Faverolles of all places. It was an unremarkable town in the face of all the turmoil, but Valjean had met his destiny in that same town. The rumors spoke of dramatic two-year transformation, but they were ignorant of the mage whom had made the change. Javert knew then what had to happen. Without deranging himself with implications, he prepared for a trip to the supposedly reborn town. And now he stands at the epicenter of the tendrils that twisted fate so giddily.

A factory. It is almost comical. All the things he hates in the world – prisons, Gypsies, children, thieves, spying, ham, starvation, freelance work, police work, even the Law in his maddest moments – are strangely eroded from his mind as he gazes upon the demon's lair. Mt. Olympus in Purgatory.

Javert prepares to do what any good spy does: gather information, and then make a plan. A week or two would be sufficient. And then he will have to gather every scrap of wit his twentysomething head contained. Whichever Javert stands at the factory entrance now, stands in the face of a genuinely uncertain future.

Tick tock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The narrative won't always be bordering on stream of consciousness. I promise. If you don't like it, please be specific as to why. Any obvious errors you see may be pointed out. I won't be upset.
> 
> Facts: the new diagnostic standard manual (DSM-5) says that AD is just a part of Autism Spectrum Disorder now. Back in the day, autism in general was confused with schizophrenia. Food for thought.


	2. Monsieur Courant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter should give you more of an idea of how this story is going to take shape. If not, then certainly by the next one.

Jean Valjean made the corrections to his charts and put them back into the lower right desk drawer. He was rather embarrassed that he missed such an obvious consequence for raising the price of the clocks. Still, it was a bearable one, should he need to do so. His workers could come to terms with the change of heart upon the promise of higher wages, and no one would have to make a fuss. It would be a while until he came across a truly massive consequence in this line of work, anyway.

Yes. Everything was going to be fine for a long, long time.

He checked his own personal clock. Jeanne could go into labor at any moment, and her...well...her 'husband' was still adjusting cogs for four more hours. He didn't want to leave the fate of the newest child in the hands of that Beaumont character. Heaven only knew how many times the man might drop the child upon his soft head. Still, the midwife should tend to her well enough. He could double-check the variable cost projection again. The fat profit margin was soothing to his nerves.

(Knock knock)

Or he could answer doors.

“Enter!”

Mademoiselle Anger opened the door gingerly, as if she had to sneak up on him. It seemed he would never get the girl to just open his door like a normal person. Perhaps if he actually let her wear leaves upon her dress...bah! The distraction would be needless at this stage in the developing work environment. But perhaps in the next quarter. He would have to see.

Leaves! From the ground! It didn't matter what color they were, they were dirty!

“Monsieur has a Sieur Courant to see you. He claims it is urgent.”

Current? That was a rather odd name. Was he born beside a river?

“Urgent how, Yelle?”

“...”

Well, it wasn't life-threatening, so indicated the pause.

“Mademoiselle, please.”

“He didn't say, monsieur. Shall I ask him?”

Lord preserve him. This routine again.

“Yes you _shall,”_ said Jean before hearing a man's cough from behind her.

Jean waited as the girl pretended to walk outside the office and pretended to ask the man what his business was. She had already done so, and he had already answered. Current seemed to make no fuss about it, bless his patience. He would have seen him just as a reward for tolerating the annoyance.

Yelle returned with a smile and said: “Courant wishes to ask you some questions about the factory that only monsieur can answer. He also says this is more urgent than it sounds. Shall I see him in?”

Current was already a strange man to Valjean. But what else was new in this lifestyle of his? Outlandish elements manifested out of thin air to befuddle him, always messing up his charts! But that was just the way of things, he supposed.

“Yes, girl, let the man in already!”

Yelle blushed furiously as she walked out the door again to let Courant through. The man stepped into sight, and Jean almost wet himself at the sight.

It couldn't be...no! It couldn't be, could it?

...No. He looks different. And that man wouldn't come here in this manner. No, it had to be someone else. Relief blanketed him from the head down to the tips of his toes. Whatever urgent business the man had could be done without interruption from phantoms. Current seemed pained as he walked in and sat in the opposite chair. Oh, dear.

“I apologize for my supervisor, monsieur. How may I help you?”

Current blinked and jostled his head, stretching his lips in a smile that seemed rehearsed. Well, that settled it. When did Javert ever smile, even falsely?

This man...Jean had seen him briefly for a couple of weeks, wandering around the town. He held the same posture as a gendarme. It was an unfortunate association.

“It doesn't bother me. Yes...I have two questions for you that I need answered, Monsieur Manager. Well...yes, two.”

“Very well.”

Courant cleared his throat. He had the same hair and shoulders, but his face was not as obtuse. He looked less severe than Javert. His nose was smaller, too. That was good; this little nuisance of memory could be easily eradicated.

Courant was certainly a better-looking man than Javert. Then again, the man was just as young as him. Perhaps youth had favored the Inspector as well, during his time at...eugh. Jean's stomach clenched. Never mind.

“I, uh...I must confess I am fascinated by your accomplishment, monsieur. Before I ask my questions, I feel it is pertinent to see if I understand it correctly.”

Jean did not like this leading. If it was urgent, then this Current should act like it.

“How about you ask your questions, monsieur, and then I will tell you as much as you like,” he proposed with raised eyebrows. The man started fidgeting a little.

“V-Very well. Monsieur...to put it bluntly, I need a job.”

Ah. Hence the urgency.

“Ah. That is not a question, though.”

Why did he not simply say this to Anger? Was it a surprise tactic? He would have heard the man out no matter how he entered the door. Perhaps Current was not so trusting.

“No, indeed,” Courant continued, seeming to regain his wit. “So my first question is whether a position is available, monsieur?”

“I'm afraid not,” Valjean answered sadly. He hated having to turn people away, but he was working to see that it wouldn't be a problem for much longer. No one would have to go jobless, and he would see that Current did not have to suffer either.

“Very well then!”, responded Courant boldly.

Valjean blinked. That light in the man's eyes...he was planning something.

“...You seem unfazed by this, monsieur. I am terribly sorry, but I don't have a space for you in my assembly team. Management is squared away. And Mademoiselle Anger is better at her job than she looks.”

It was a slip born from insecurity, but he felt he couldn't let that incident color his opinion of her so swiftly. Such a sweet girl need not be defined by the trials and tribulations of sending people through doors.

“That is not a problem, monsieur, as I will prove with my next question. I have watched this factory for a week or so, and I believe I have found a weak link in your 'assembly team'. Monsieur, I ask if I may compete against him for his position?”

...Oh. Such a cutthroat inquiry. Perhaps this man would never cease to remind him of Javert. Still, he had to be thorough.

“...Oh. That is a highly unusual request. I am not sure if I can fulfill it.”

“I believe the man's name is Beaumont...monsieur? If you grant me this request, I will prove that I am a better choice for fine-tuning the cogs in your clocks.”

Jean Valjean looked to his charts in his desk drawer. The chain of events that could follow this were potentially disastrous. But at the same time, the man looked very thin and dirty: he truly did need a job. Why else would he be granted a second chance by the Lord if it weren't to overcome the mundane strife of France?

Plus, he asked to compete against Beaumont. Maybe he would finally convince the man to stop aiming for what he wasn't allowed to have with a setup like this. His sister could have a proper replacement for Bastian, and the silly oaf could stop slowing down the cog production. Perhaps he would recommend the man to the bakery. Beaumont's hands seemed more suited for kneading than tinkering.

Bastian. Jean dreamed of the man's sudden illness, prepared for the moment, and saved her sister's husband to live fruitfully in this new time. Bastian repayed him by estranging himself from Jeanne. Were it not for the Catholic faith, he was sure the man would have divorced her and fled town, leaving their six children (seven by this day, he bet!) to chance, simply for fear of tending to them all. Jean made an effort not to let his face contort with the fury of Heaven now, and he did the same then as well. By the time he had won the factory, he offered the man a job to keep him near his blasted family. The two-timing coward would shave wood for clock supports until he changed his mind or until Jean found a way to convince a priest to annul the marriage and insert a new, _respectable_ beau.

He worked so hard for a better life for his family, believed so firmly in the chances he was given. Perhaps some things could never change after all. But this request he had now seemed like a change he could not avoid.

“I will consider your request.”

Courant bowed in his chair, short and perfunctory from the chest. It was too similar. He had to ask now.

“Before this gets too far...what is your first name, monsieur?”

“Ah! It...Javert, monsieur. Javert Courant is my name!”

Oh, dearest mercy.

Was there still a chance? Javert...who else bore that name?! Jean kept his smile plastered. He couldn't even grasp the danger lurking in hypotheticals, not yet. He had to stick to facts for now.

Everything peculiar about this meeting glared at him brighter than the noonday sun. He _did_ look a lot like the Inspector, and this awkward manner Current presented wouldn't be out of place per se, if the man himself had to ask for a job under Valjean of all people. But then, this man seemed calm. Javert would have been tearing his hair out along with the pauses and sudden stiffness. Was he playing a game? Was this an undercover investigation to make sure he didn't run the factory like the previous owner?

It would have been humiliating for Javert to ask to be a simple factory worker under him. And why would he come to Faverolles dressed as anything but a policeman? No, the man would have come storming in here, demanding to see the villain Valjean and...

And Javert would have nothing that he could do. Yes, how did he forget that nugget of gold so hastily?

Jean Valjean was a free man, and Javert simply belonged to the police. He could even offer a baguette by his own earnings to the man, and Javert would have no clear reason to refuse it. Not that he would otherwise, but...well, well, well, well, well!

This was a good idea after all. It would happen. But on his terms.

“Javert!”, he accepted with a smile. “That is not a name I've heard before. Rather unusual, like your last name as well.”

“...My name is biblical, monsieur! Though I must say, you're only the third person to ever ask me about it.”

Biblical?

“Do tell. I enjoy the history of names.”

He couldn't care less. Current was either the Inspector or some other Champmathieu.

“Javert, grandson of Noah, monsieur. Perhaps most people skip over that particular man in the good book.”

He had to admit, that was a twist. Noah's grandson...the family of the flood. Or a river. Still, the man was wrong.

“I believe the correct name is Javan, Monsieur Current. One of the seven brothers, monsieur Javan.”

“...No, I am certain it is Javert. And the name is Courant. But no matter. I would compete at anytime you can manage, should you permit me.”

Excellent.

“I shall speak with Beaumont about this. It is hard to say how he would--”

He felt his voice die in his throat as he heard harsh wailing from the other side of the factory, steadily getting closer. Suddenly, the door swung wide open to reveal little Michel, looking out of breath and bug-eyed with streaming tears. Jean felt the blood draining from his face; what had he missed?! What was going to go wrong now?! He wildly gestured with his right hand for an explanation.

His hand was young. Jean Valjean was young again...

He could do this. He had it within him to defeat whatever struck his haven.

“Oncle! Please, hurry! Maman is going to die!”

Oh.

Why didn't they stop him from coming here and explain it to him? Or maybe he just didn't believe it when they did. He was proving to be a suspicious sort, even at the age of five.

Current, Courant, whatever, was now bug-eyed himself at the false news. Jeanne would not have birthed six children to be done in by a seventh. But the mind of a child is something to admire in how quickly it could assume the extreme.

“Your maman is not dying, Michel. She is having a child.”

“But she's screaming and red-faced! What if it's different this time?!”

“I just saw her this morning, and she is perfectly fine, ma petite.”

“She's in pain, oncle! Make it stop!”

Jean noted that his interviewee didn't seem overly compassionate or grievous at first, nor was he relieved or chuckling at second. He looked simply confused. Perhaps he was a touch on the helpless side when it came to social events. Although, he never would have presumed that about anybody if it weren't for Mlle. Anger's presence. Clueless, certainly, but not helpless; it was an eye-opening change of perspective.

He had seen her walk day after day under the trees he pruned in his first life, collecting leaves. She stayed out of the way, so he just seethed about how leisurely she was gathering dirty foliage while he was fighting for every bit of work he could find. He never thought to talk to her...but just the smallest thought about what she might be like was enough for him to discover her outrageous attention to detail.

He also discovered her painfully obvious shyness and loneliness. Jean was disgusted with how ignorantly he dismissed it the first time.

Now she was a surprising asset to his industrial success, making him richer and her braver around other people. This truly was a gift from the Lord, to take the sorrow from his world and make it dissolvable. His rescue of her would be one among many for so many other poor souls throughout his ambition to which he was solemnly called!

“ONCLE!”

Yes, yes, he had to leave.

“We will conclude this tomorrow, Monsieur Courant. Noon, if you can manage it. We will find your answer then.”

Just to be safe. A night to think over the repercussions of hiring a man who could be his antithesis. There was no such thing as being too careful with the tools he was using. Javert Courant made a weak gesture of acceptance with his hand, and that was the last thing Jean noticed before leaving the office to head home.

Jeanne...it still amazed him. He was here again, in Faverolles! His sister was healthy! His nieces and nephews were playing! Her husband...well, nothing could be perfect. The miracle of it thrummed through his body with exquisite warmth. He would not be absent to see further proof of God's love coming to light.

Hopefully Yelle could handle herself.

* * *

 

Javert took a moment to accept what had just happened. The child had interrupted a business negotiation for a legitimate concern. Valjean did not anticipate the blatant breech of protocol, nor did he encourage it. It was perfectly acceptable for a factory manager to take some time from his duties to ensure that his sister would give birth healthily (within reason). He could stop reeling from the harsh transition in atmosphere now.

The Inspector would have just harrumphed and dismissed the whole thing as the consequences of frivolous living. Perhaps it was. But this wasn't like he could be assigned to the factory by Paris to oversee the environment from a safe emotional distance. This was supposed to be an interview for a permanent working position. Javert didn't have the luxury of dismissing the personal concerns of the man who could possibly be his sole source of revenue, even in terms of what precisely they were. At least not yet.

His body was still roiling in the mild, yet persistent heat of the encounter, implications and expectations battering him. The room was empty with no peering eyes, and so he allowed himself to lightly shake the jitters from his limbs and took some deep breaths. All in all, it had gone about as well as he could have hoped. The smile on Valjean's face promised that the competition would be held, but on the manager's terms. Fair enough.

He was used to competing for work, to put it mildly. Whatever terms he faced, he would accept.

Still...he had hoped the interview would have gone as smoothly as he pictured it. An interview where he didn't have to stop himself from wringing his hands, one where he the pauses he put between words were for an intentional effect and not just...losing his nerve. How did the other Javert have such firm control of his impulses? Was it because he was older? Maybe the man would be just as nerve-wracked as him for having to meet the other Valjean under such circumstances. If there was another. Doubtless it would be mortifying as well.

That was when Javert put his first impression of the factory owner into full view. He looked at Jean Valjean, the one in his life, and felt...nothing. The man had no power over him apart from being a potential employer. He was candid, he didn't people hiding secrets, he seemed respectful and respectable, he didn't dismiss Javert without hearing the whole story; the man seemed good and proper as a businessman so far.

As a person, Javert couldn't deny being impressed by the man either. He was charismatic without too much emotion, he was clearly ambitious, he socialized well, he was well-liked, he was handsome--

NO.

Javert had decided upon this issue several times, each with the same conclusion. There was no point in pursuing such thoughts. In the midst of all the whispering voices and shifting faces of ordinary people, Javert had created a foundation with which to navigate the social climate: actions are what define a person, not words. Therefore, his actions toward anyone to whom he felt attracted would determine his character not just in that mood of attraction but his character overall. Therefore still, because it was immoral and insensible and fruitless and sorrowful to desire another man, he would not act on such desires and determine his character in that manner. He was not a sodomite, and therefore he was good.

Except...to put it purely, it didn't matter that he found this young Jean Valjean to be handsome, but thinking about such things was hardly a productive means of avoiding acting upon such desire. He decided to follow the manner of the other Javert and simply live chastely. No thoughts of depravity, no risk of sin. And the occasional stiffness in his trousers certainly wasn't worth the effort.

He had considered the possibility that Valjean would have been plagued with visions of his other self. But whether or not this was so, it had not determined the man's destiny. Even though the latter lived dishonestly, the former endeavored to do right by the law and by the Lord. All of this led to his final verdict concerning the man who sat in front of him: the phantom Jean Valjean and the Faverolles factory manager were two different people. Jean Valjean was good _now_ if not in any other distorted time, and that was good enough for him.

Deep, cooling relief flowed softly down his chest at last; the voices could argue and rage as much as they liked now! Javert was privileged to be able to learn from the lessons of the Inspector, as well as to avoid the sparse mistakes the man made out of poor emotional restraint. But otherwise, Javert was free to forge an identity without the foreign input. Or not to do so! He could continue to allow the name Courant to sink into his skin and flesh out his role as a simple laborer, or he could reject it. No thief could steal _that_ from him!

Yes...not being a policeman forevermore was still a difficult decision, but it was one he could bear. It was the right thing to do. He had to obey the law without enforcing it, and this was a way of doing so that also subjugated his whispering fortune-telling demons. Javert _would_ get Monsieur Manager to agree to the contest and he _would_ win and he _would_ notice the supervisor for the cog adjusting team staring at him without getting to wrapped up in his own thoughts.

The young brunette shied away from his returned gaze. He was curious about her. She was a very plain woman, but with the right adjustments, she could look very pretty indeed. Whatever those adjustments would be. But this instance seemed to ignore appearances. Physical ones.

If a woman could end up in a managerial position, especially with such a timid temperament, then it was a wonder exactly what made her belong in the factory. He looked away from her reddening face. The spying he did revealed little about her because she only came into view when there were obvious faults occurring in the cog assembly. She impatiently and precisely made corrections to the workers and then resumed standing silently above the tinkering men, sometimes rubbing her thumbs over each other. It was distracting to him, but he couldn't help a weak affinity for how little she seemed to want to interact with the others. Javert and the Inspector both could understand that.

But still! Why was she directly in charge of the team, and why did she unconventionally take a pause to see Javert to Monsieur Valjean's door? _What exactly was her purpose there?_ It certainly wasn't to prove any value in a woman overlooking men! Although, the notion of it did sit oddly with him...was that sort of hiring practice going to be a trend with M. Valjean?

Beaumont's position here was inappropriate, but he saw why he had ended up working here: like with many businesses that recruited poverty-stricken workers, this company had a policy of loyalty to those whom applied the most quickly and the most eagerly. Beaumont most likely had competitors more adapted (in other words, not clumsy or short-tempered) to the delicate science of getting tiny cogs for clocks into the right shape and proportion for the mechanism that demanded it, but the man showed the most enthusiasm (and probably the most need) for simple work in exchange for humble pay. Javert held this human resource approach in contempt, and he would make it clear to Made—Valjean why that was:

Enthusiasm sometimes fertilized the soil for efficiency and dedication to grow. But it would never be a guarantee. A direct confrontation was a near-perfect method of showcasing the failures of supported enthusiasm for just what they were. Failures. Javert never failed in this capacity because he worked for results, not satisfaction. Any satisfaction that comes afterward would be well-deserved for a job already done, and done well. But this was getting away from the woman whose results were uncertain at best.

Javert stood up to see himself out of the office at last, moving to open the door when the supervisor hastily moved to come inside. He took in her emotionally constipated expression and decided to...test her a little. He stepped aside with a slight bow. He didn't know why he decided to bow of all gestures to make her react. Javert helplessly watched himself bend forward at the waist and bring his right arm forward, but he was careful to watch the woman nonetheless. She squinted at him somewhat and seemed to be even more nervous, but then she seemed to dismiss it and continued to tentatively pad to her employer's desk. Good. Nonsense should have been just that to her, and it seemed to be so.

The Inspector never made mistakes like this. Not in front of people. That was proof of how they were different.

The supervisor decided to...root around in the left side drawers?! What the devil could she possibly need in there? If she took notes on her workers' performance, then she should keep them by her side or at her home for easy reference. That simply made sense, no? Or...perhaps Valjean was testing her as well.

Javert remembered sneaking into the manager's office for the factory in Nice to see the notes the pervert had taken of his employees. There were none. All there was in the drawer was a packet of pages showing underlined appointments of when to call certain workers into his office, with no reason mentioned or even given ample space to be mentioned in the tightly-packed scrawlings. A lot could be told about a person by what he or she decided to write down, even casually. Despite no evidence to slice off the man's head, that was that packet that convinced the judge to rightfully sentence the abomination to the closest Hell that France could invent. The Asylum. He was rotting in there now with the rest of the deranged, and all was well.

...What was the man's name again? The case number was what stuck with him. Ah well. He needed never speak the man's name for anything. Javert wondered what this...Anger?...had written.

Mlle. Anger pulled an apple out of the drawer. An apple. She had hidden an apple in her emplyer's bottom left drawer...? She set it down upon the desk and examined it. Perhaps upon realizing that looking at the bottom would make for a complete analysis, she picked it up again and started in earnest. For what was she looking? It wasn't as if anyone else but him would have sized up the freckles raining almost poignantly down the green coat. Why did she come into Valjean's office to take out an apple and look at it intently?

Suddenly, Anger looked up at him.

“...I believe your business here is concluded?” The tone was odd. It was as if she couldn't decide whether to be condescending or emotionless or genuine. He doubted he could replicate that tone, but perhaps it might have been worth a try. If nothing else, it would have been a good stalling tactic.

He remembered himself.

“...Yes, indeed. Good day, Mademoiselle...Anger? Is that right?”

Anger looked surprised, but then she smiled with a sudden warmth and glee.

“Yes, monsieur! I am glad I was mentioned.”

The two of them stood.

“...That _was_ how you heard my name, yes? From Monsieur Manager?”

“Y-yes.” This conversation had all the grace of a two-legged horse, and he wasn't helping. “Very briefly, he said that...” Should he say it? Yes, no? Well, Valjean seemed to think it worth mentioning. “...he said that you are better at your job than you look.”

Anger did not seem pleased at the statement. Had he done something wrong? No, no, that was exactly what Valjean said. He had done well. He suppressed a smile, thinking it would change her regard of him and therefore ruin the test.

“I see,” she said with the air of someone who didn't want to speak anymore of it. “So you are going to compete tomorrow, like you claimed?”

He was glad she didn't dismiss the story as insanity. He definitely smiled then, and it was acceptable to do so.

“It seems so. I expect to see you tomorrow at noon.”

Oh, dear. He just realized how inarticulate that was. Why was he letting the messy speech of the optionals slither into his mind?

Anger blinked emphatically.

“...Along with the others? Or just me? Please be articulate, monsieur.”

Javert blinked emphatically. That was a powerful statement. 'Please be articulate.' It had so many applications! He would definitely use it later. Yes, yes, she had just given him a tool of great utility, and she didn't even realize it!

In regards to the test...she had passed. With such an effective tool to seek clarity, he doubted she would find much trouble that was insurmountable. For whatever it was worth, she was worthy of working under Jean Valjean. The real one. Not the one that played demon's tricks on the Inspector.

He wondered if she ever heard voices.

“I meant along with the others, mademoiselle. Pardon my inarticulation.”

Anger seemed relieved.

“It is no trouble. See you tomorrow, monsieur,” she said with a hand waving him out of the office. She clearly had a lot of work to do. With that apple. And other items. Possibly.

Javert left the office at last and spied the factory division that housed the cog makers and adjustors. It was niggling at his mind how Mlle. Anger could leave them to their own devices. But they seemed to be working nominally. Perhaps she had trained them well. With verbal tools like hers, that was a good bet!

Upon exiting the factory, he looked upon it and found the pall it cast over his soul had faded. It was simply an unlikely factory now. A wealthy thief, not unlike the other Jean Valjean, had set it up here to generate francs without scrutiny from big city police. The factory itself was abhorrent, treating its workers as convict-slaves, even when they were working optimally. There may have been some sexual misconduct as well, though it was never proven. Funny how that quality belonged to so many other factories. Then the true Valjean started to work there and forged a bond with the other workers in the name of overthrowing their self-involved employer. He became their leader, submitting proof of Bain's villainy, and amazingly proved himself capable of running the factory in his stead.

Javert was obviously suspicious at the tale, but now he could see a cogent explanation. Some men truly were blessed to be leaders in unlikely situations. Men like Madeleine really did exist, and Valjean was proof of that. It was just a shame the flowing rivers of reality held a ragged stone such as that other Valjean, or Fauchelevent, or Fabre, or whatever other name he fancied to steal. The man was a thief from stem to stern.

And Javert was finally rid of him.


	3. See You Tomorrow

Alexandre Valjean.

Jean strolled down the twilit marketplace as he mulled over the words. It was a boastful name for Jean's newest nephew, but one he felt was well deserved. His family had conquered the misfortune that would have befell them if he allowed the flow of events to erode them as they did in the first lifetime. He found he couldn't even remember the name of the seventh child from his first tenure as breadwinner for the Valjeans; even the suggestion of such negligence was enough to wrench his insides. Not unlike when he found the Savoyard's silver under his foot after not having bothered to check if the boy was telling the truth...neither of those heinous events would come to pass now.

“Good evening, Monsieur Sauveur!”

Jean had wandered into the church square and completely ignored the baker coming out of the store to greet him. He couldn't get away with that so many times in a row. No matter how much the strong irony made him sweat with anxiety.

“And to you, Monsier Isadore,” he managed to utter without choking off his sentence.

“Ah, he speaks to me! Better and better!”

Valjean smiled. It was terrible how he must have made the man feel, spurning him so often. But he could not help how the greatest mistake of his life was thrust upon his heart simply from looking at the man and the unbroken window pane. It was all he could do not to sprint toward his home at times.

“Now I can congratulate you proper! All this expanding wealth you have brought us, and in clean money! Conqueror of evil! You really have done your parents proud, Valjean!”

His parents...the baker spoke tactlessly, though not unkindly.

“I know. Take care, monsieur.”

“ _Please_ take care, sauveur!” A hint of desperation. Oh, dear. He would have to adjust his causality charts again: some people were still bordering on dependence for his industry.

The one instance that nearly made him spurn his precious gift and turn to despair-filled delinquency was his failure to save them. He had only started dreaming of the future, of his past self, at the age of seven. It was just before his mother and then his father were set to befall their almost comically mundane deaths. But he was too young. He didn't understand his dreams, and he certainly didn't believe they genuinely told the future. Why would he, when they were so vivid as to twist his peurile mind into believing his dreams were real and his waking moments were a lie? His poor mother must have reeled when she saw her only son racing up to her with eyes as wide as a king's backside, claiming that he was being controlled by evil Gypsy magic.

They died the same way they did before, with the only differences being his mother spoke a prayer for his sanity before fading away, and his father almost seemed glad to be crushed from the fall. Perhaps he felt he was freed from worrying about his son as much as his mother was. Jean Valjean had died, and he was reborn to see Jean Valjean die bittersweetly instead of just bitterly.

It wasn't right to think so, but he was pleasantly surprised that neither of them sent a priest to exorcise him. The Lord had decided that he was set apart for greater things, and therefore He must have spared him that torment. But why did they die?! Why did he become young again, only to have his childhood cut so short once more?! It wasn't until he dreamed of more, of Montreuil, of sweet Cosette that he accepted the tragedy as God's mysterious will. The twisting tendrils of fate that pierced so many hearts would fear his righteous blade!

“...Monsieur?”

Jean Valjean blinked. He had let his mind wander right in front of the baker. That was not acceptable.

“I am so sorry, Isadore! My sister just gave birth, it has been a long day.”

“Ah, at last!”, exclaimed the cosmically ignorant baker. “No wonder you stare into the void. Has he been named?”

A devilish thought creeped into his mind. The mere presence of the man perturbed him, so why not alleviate that with a slightly unmannered correction? It was _something._

“He?”

The baker flushed.

“I-I-I should not have presumed! Perdon, perdon!”

“I jest, monsieur. Alexandre!”

“...You are a childish man, monsieur,” the baker retorted childishly.

Valjean grinned. If not a childhood, then a child in a man's body. It was acceptable.

“...Ah, there he is again,” the baker suddenly declared, bitterly. “He never buys anything.”

Hm? Valjean looked to where the baker pointed, and he saw the job candidate from this morning, walking with that same stiffness that made his blood run cold. So many phantoms seemed to haunt him. It must have been a test, a test to see if he could handle distractions in his great quest. Courant must have been walking toward the pastures. Jean wondered: if the man were not Javert, then where would the man be now? The same heartless guard in Toulon?

The image caught him off-guard with the burden of pity it created. Yes, Inspector Javert possessed cruelty that was denied. Yes, the man considered the lower classes to be analogous with criminals. But his reborn eyes saw clearly what his former self was too invested in his environment to notice. Madeleine had never known the man to take a woman, or a friend, or even family. He doubted anyone would have been willing to do so even if he tried. Being even lonelier than Mme. Anger would have made anyone bitter, especially someone as emotionally constipated as Javert. Hopefully his campaign could at least some relief for the misguided fool. Regardless, Jean Valjean's curiousity was peaked.

“I would like a baguette, monsieur.”

Isadore almost tripped over himself to comply.

* * *

 

Javert had noticed on his first day in this transformed – no, simply distinct – Faverolles that there was one little pasture that offered a very clear view of the sky. He couldn't rent out a home as close to it as he would have liked, but the walk was negigible, and his feet were more than calloused enough to handle an even further one, if it came to that. He leaned back against the fence that told the cows in the distance where their owners wanted them to stay. Did cows like the evening sun? Twilight was a pretty time of the evening, but he preferred her daughter.

...Javert decided to stop waxing poetic. That just sounded vulgar.

The first signs of THAT were appearing, stuck in the formation that appeared in early autumn without fail. They were going to bless this day, as they did all the others. Today had been a very good day. His life could truly begin as one separate from the voices and the visions. Javert had a real last name, and it would be one known in Faverolles. Beaumont wouldn't know what hit him! Yes...this was his home now.

“I'd hate to interrupt you when you appear so content--”

Javert started a little. He had heard footsteps following faintly behind him, but he knew the local police had saw him and his pursuer walking past. If the man were dangerous, he...he actually trusted them to stop anything from happening. He cursed his stupidity born from inattention! Such obvious negligence...he couldn't let emotions cloud his judgment, no matter how profound. In any case, Sieur Valjean was a welcome presence. But...

“--But I thought to share this with you, Monsieur Courant.”

Javert saw the baguette in the peasant-turned-gentleman's hands. But...

“...There's no need to be shy, dear fellow! This means nothing of tomorrow.”

He supposed it didn't. But...

“Why?”

Valjean seemed confused and a little offended. Oh, dear. He was already making a poor impression on an employer of many people. It was the same in Nice, almost without fail. Sure, he made a point of how his work was more important than his manner. But...

...But what? He was being silly. His manner didn't matter one whit.

“Why not? It's a beautiful evening, I have some bread, and I don't intend to eat it all.”

“That is a wasteful attitude,” Javert said before he could stop himself.

Valjean chuckled. Javert bristled.

“Only if you don't eat any of it.”

Javert blinked. His bristles died down. Or whatever it was bristles did to cease existing.

“Eh? I wasn't referring to this particular—”

Valjean blinked. This was becoming pointless. It was like talking to a different species.

“...I don't take what isn't mine. So...”, he scrunched up every ounce of restraint to utter what he knew was a lie, “while your kindness is touching, I would rather not partake of it.”

…

Jean was giddy. He was finding more and more that, whether or not this man bore the ghost of Inspector Javert, interacting with a similar personality without fear of persecution was enormously stress-relieving. Instead of passive-aggressively arguing against the policy of complete ruthlessness, Jean found he could gently persuade the soul posing the counter-argument to think a little differently. He would make Javert Courant take the damn baguette, and Javert Courant would like it. No question! All he needed was a different presentation. And he had more than one lifetime of experience presenting himself to others.

“It is not purely kindness,” he countered. Hmm. He was taking a risk here. But it seemed to be a promising start.

Javert seemed puzzled. Good.

“I don't understand what you mean, Monsieur Manager.”

Jean had to suppress a smile. The man was already thinking of working under him, already imagining success. Courant was confident, borderline arrogant, and Beaumont was a blowhard. This would be well.

He imagined working with the not-Inspector day after day. Perhaps having little talks like this by the pasture at night. He could certainly grow to enjoy it, even when the novelty of casually interacting with Javert wore off. Courant seemed to favor the night sky. The setting sun cast a crimson shade upon the man, making his face...oh, goodness. No, no, that wouldn't do. He would lose his good standing with the Lord, having thoughts like that. The man was too thin to be highly attractive, anyway. He needed to eat, probably just to regain his strength.

...Ah-ha!

“Monsieur?”

“...I said earlier that this gesture had nothing to do with tomorrow, with deciding the competition you proposed.”

“...Yes, you did,” acknowledged Javert unsteadily. “But not exactly in those words.”

“I lied. This has everything to do with it.” He ignored the stipulation Javert added. But it was a strange thing to say.

Courant didn't seem to have a response to this. That was for the best.

“Beaumont eats enough for three men. He will be well-fed for any competition between the two of you. If you are underfed, then you will be at a disadvantage. I refuse to have something this outlandish in my factory also be unfair...if it indeed ends up happening.”

He almost added 'You will eat to prepare, just in case', but thought better of it. The response was important here.

“I am already at a disadvantage for not having worked on cogs for clocks before,” answered Javert. “But I doubt Beaumont would even agree to the contest without disregarding that. If I can work with one handicap, then I can work with two. If anything, that would prove my dedication, no?”

Dammit. Stubbornness seemed to run in Gypsy men! He had to think quickly.

...Wait.

“Exactly what is your experience working in a factory, Monsieur Courant? I would have asked you before, but we were interrupted.” He felt silly for agreeing to consider all of this without basic information like this. But even if Courant had none, Jean would still have let him compete.

Javert flushed. Had he hit on a sour memory? The man stiffened while still leaning upon the fence.

“I spied in a deinking mill as a member of the Nice police force. I helped bleach the recycled paper while trying to find evidence of the manager's sexual depravity toward his workers, which were underage. I found it, and the man is rotting in an asylum now.”

Jean studied Courant's face at this moment. The man was clearly pleased, but no smile was present. It was the same grim satisfaction as the phantom that stalked him. In that moment...despite the way Courant's face looked, it was very, very difficult to tell them apart. Cold sweat started to run down his back.

One test. One test, and then he would leave it be forevermore.

“What a shame that I couldn't witness such an important arrest! It would have been well to see Inspector Javert taking down the scoundrel.”

Wait for it...

“...I was not an Inspector at the time,” replied Javert with a worried face. “I was a teenager. Why did you...”

Jean kept his gaze straight into Javert's wavering one. He wanted to pretend none of this was happening, that Alexandre was the most exciting thing to happen that day, but this was the moment he needed to cement the rest of his strange life. Yes or no. Lookalike or distorted original. Now or never.

“...Monsieur Valjean...I must ask you something. I fear for your response, but--”

“Ask me,” demanded Jean.

Tick tock.

Tick tock.

Tick tock tick tock tick.

“...Do you hear voices?”

* * *

 

Chains flashed in Javert's mind. He'd be thrown into a cell without even hay to comfort him. Men who said things like that were dangerous. Javert was dangerous, and Jean Valjean would be the one to detain him before he caused trouble for anyone. He supposed it would be ironic if the situation weren't too weird for words.

Still...he couldn't give in until he knew for sure. Only the tiniest speck of doubt still plagued him, simply by the fact that two people sharing the same visions of their other selves was absurd in the highest order. And yet there they were. What was a man to do? Jean's startled frown seemed to tell him 'not much at all'.

“Voices, you say?”

“...Yes,” Javert managed to whisper. His throat was tightening into a vice.

Jean was torn between two revelations: either Courant was demented, or Inspector Javert had received insight of his prior life differently than he did. He couldn't say which one held more explanatory power. But it was clear that neither of them were having a good time right then. Jean had to be even more careful.

“I can't say I have. But if it's not intrusive to ask...what do these voices say to you?”

Javert didn't have to ask why Jean assumed he was actually hearing them. Seeing that intense look on his face, only barely visible now in the setting sun...it was like seeing someone entirely new. Not the phantom Valjean, not the mayor, not the recidivist, not the underdog factory owner...but someone whose life had been touched by all of them. And just like that, the speck had been blown away.

But who _did_ stand before him, then?

“...They tell me about a man similar to myself. His name was Javert, and he belonged to the police. And he...he did not have a pleasant life. Nor did the man he pursued.”

Javert had to turn away from Valjean's gaze. It was burning with intensity, hanging on every word he spoke. He was sure no one would find such attention comfortable.

Meanwhile, Jean was doing everything he could not to collapse to his knees. The Inspector was not in Toulon, not flogging prisoners. The brainless scoundrel was right here. And Jean was to test him for a position in the clock factory. Inspector Javert was a jobless youth in Faverolles who asked unconditionally to be under his employ! Madness!

“This Javert, this Inspector, chased after a man that shared your name. Jean Valjean was a thief and an inveterate liar who broke his parole, constantly dogging the Inspector's attempts to bring him back into the system. After years of chasing the man, the Inspector finally relented upon having to grapple with a dilemma. And then...”

Javert dared to spy the manager's face, which was wide-eyed and sweaty and not in the least bit relenting. That part of his life was private. It had nothing to do with Jean Valjean. Didn't it?

Jean had to remind himself to breathe: the one aspect of the Inspector's life that refused to make sense to him, and the same man was about to reveal it after far too long. He didn't know what to feel anymore.

“...And then he passed away. After that, the voices just told me more of what happened before.”

“DAMMIT, JAVERT!”

“W-WHAT?!”

Jean slapped his own face. He couldn't tackle that problem yet, not with how sensitive it was...Javert's suicide...he figured the man would come arrest him, or send someone else, or retire out of frustration, but not...never that. That was never an option.

...Why was he reborn, after having done something so hideous? And looking so different: smaller nose, smoother skin, thinner face, looking like a poor copy of the policeman hell-bent on muzzling a good man? What was the Lord's plan for _him?_

“...My apologies. This is a very emotional tale for me to hear. You see...” The Inspector was brave enough to tell him, and so he would reciprocate. “I know exactly what you're saying. I have seen everything you described in my dreams, and in great detail. Except of course, for...the last that you said.”

Javert shuddered. Jean didn't have time to feel sorry for him, not yet.

“Over time, it became clear to me that I am the recidivist your...'Inspector' was chasing. I am Jean Valjean. I am le Maire de Montreuil in the future. And we are both reborn.”

“ _No, we are not.”_

Javert could hear the Inspector rattling off the code of France as he pulled the former mayor off to Montreuil-sur-mer's holding cell. That voice was not his. They simply sounded the same. They were not and never would be the same.

“You must be the same,” said Valjean. “It is the only explanation!”

_I am careful not to speak to myself in front of others. I do well to hide this side from those bastards who would question my weakness. It matters not for them. I am the arm of the Law, and they need not know anything else about me. Certainly not the mayor. He is older and wiser, at times, but he is not my priest._

“...You haven't realized it yet, have you?”

Jean paused his upcoming tirade. Oddly enough, he had a feeling he knew what Javert was saying.

“You haven't. Monsieur, how many years do you have?”

...What?!

“...I have twenty-four. I am quite young to run a factory, but I am qualified, as the evidence shows,” he rattled off automatically. He cursed his own lack of lucidity in such dire circumstances.

“Very well,” continued Javert undaunted. “How many would you say I have?”

Jean squinted at the man, still confused, and declared: “I would say around the same that I do.”

“Exactly. Inspector Javert was ten years younger than Jean Valjean. If I am the Inspector reborn, then why am I older than he would be?”

"................"

There was no answer to this. Jean simply gaped at the miracle phantom standing before him. Javert Courant seemed more and more an impossible figure.

“God works in mysterious ways...perhaps He meant to give you a different start. To mold you into something new.”

Javert gave one short, bitter bark of a laugh.

“Or perhaps my Gypsy blood has cursed me with the Sight of an irrelevant world.”

Jean felt his patience worn thin. Enough of this philosophical driftwood. Who cared if Javert was older? A tool would still be a tool, no matter how the Lord remodeled it to look more appealing.

“Gypsies have naught to do with this! We have been given a second chance to change out lots in life. Take your voices and at least _try_ to learn how to be a better person from them!”

“I am not this Inspector without a last name! _You_ are not that spineless coward that refused to face the consequences of his actions! We are simply--”

“I DID FACE THEM! I obeyed your wretched law, and my life was nearly forfeit because of it! _My life for a loaf of bread, Javert!_ ”

It was wonderful release, all the rage bottled within him pouring forth as it bursting from a broken dam. Jean was protesting to his nemesis, and the man could do nothing about it. He was grieving, and he could finally put his former life to rest at the end. Only...Javert's expression became dark. It occurred to Jean that Javert was never conventionally angry in Montreuil or in Paris. It was always tempered with the need to obey the law. But this...

Javert looked every inch the cornered lion. Javert was _defiant._ Javert was _**scared.**_

“I will not discuss this with you, Monsieur Manager. I believe that the two of us were touched by another world, by the lives of two blasted fools...one more foolish than the other. And I will not listen to you saying otherwise anymore.”

Jean could have strangled the bastard, clobbered the more foolish of them both with the baguette he had nearly crushed in his fist. He had not the least desire to lie in Limbo with a glowering not-Inspector that denied the obvious heritage they shared. As infinitely boggling as it was. Yet he had no choice. His charts had to stay clean.

“Very well, then. I believe the two of us were reborn, and I don't wish to hear _your_ arguments to the contrary.”

“Understood. I still aim to compete for that position as Sieur Courant.”

“Understood. See you tomorrow.”

Jean thrust the baguette at Javert, who hesitated before exasperatedly snatching it to tear it clean in half. Javert gave the top half to Jean and side-stepped him to head home. This was not how either of them expected this to go.

Just what in blue blazes were they supposed to do now?


	4. Teeth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes descriptions of the factory and of woodwork, so it gets a little dry in places D: BUT! It does have character development even in the dry parts. It'll be worth it.

 Seven hours after midnight exactly.

Javert woke up in the morning to the sound of that same clock on the wall to his right. His concierge had pointed it out to him with an absurd amount of pride, saying it was proof of how the magnanimous peasant, who claimed the horrible factory in the name of the poor and just, was still serving him and the community after the fact. Javert himself had no response to that at the time. Looking at the same clock this morning, he found that he couldn't even summon a thought of regard for it. He didn't need one, but it bothered him that an item in his bedroom actually defied explanation. Valjean had revealed part of his truer nature – that of a mysterious fool – and the clocks he made seemed to transform with him.

Monsieur Manager made him shudder. Valjean was so intense! That was why. Right? He seemed so concerned about the death of a man he never met...but it felt like Javert was the target of that emotion. Even thinking about it made him uncomfortable.

He licked the inside of his mouth. Same as every morning, enough to purge the filth that caked his gums. He sat up and spied the baguette half, sitting on the table under the clock. He hadn't taken a single bite.

Reborn...what could have made the man conclude that so easily? Javert had considered the possibility, but the evidence clearly pointed in the other major direction. But even if it didn't, such conviction was inappropriate! More importantly, matter how strongly Jean Valjean might act like it, he was not the Thief. Valjean did not steal bread or names or the good standing of communities or children or _his own family_ or...Javert jostled his head to regain himself. Valjean may feel compassion or loyalty toward the phantom, some useless regard like so, but that didn't mean the man was obligated to speak for such a cowardly demon.

_How could he exist? To be of justice and yet not, to recidivise and yet be absolutely wholesome. For me to be—what truth will out—nothing is law—God is an honest liar—Old man, new thief—it hurts—_

Javert almost had to laugh at the Inspector, every time. The moment he heard those muddled words was the moment he knew that man was a distinct and strange tragedy: the Seine had swallowed a policeman and Javert felt nothing. He saw nothing as well: just the backs of his eyelids. It was like watching a poorly written play, where the villain had to be disposed upon discovering he hadn't conformed to the writer's moral dogma on time.

“Villain? No, no, only according to the Thief. He always speaks of despair, not evil. That supposed anguish comes out of nowhere, every time! One conundrum, and the man folded, not even considering that it was simply beyond him to answer. Should have abandoned it. Inspector Javert was a ninny, by unanimous verdict. The Thief was a trickster that the Inspector should have recognized as...beyond his ability to capture or even comprehend; duty to justice is not the same thing as...trying to restrain Cerberus with one rope. Pride was what made the old man fall.”

The baguette seemed to bore into his vision. He had to regain his original train of thought first, ignoring the bread he shouldn't have taken for now. All in good time. Where were his other clothes again? Damn foggy mind. Yes, in the chest under the bed. Where they always were. His money was in there, too, what was left of it. He didn't have enough for next week's meals.

...Wait. 'Some useless regard like so.' Useless? Was that the right term?

Baguette. It wasn't stale yet. He swallowed the saliva pooling in his now-cleaner mouth.

Javert had learned to live without compassion or 'loyalty', the inferior brother to consistency. They were too wildly variant for his tastes, and he was never graced with their presence as a child anyway. From what he had seen, all that those 'virtues' truly did was open up its bearers to be manipulated by those who disregarded them. But Javert overcame both the compassionate/loyal and the unscrupulous: he worked for every scrap of revenue and resource he ever had. **Except**...well, that gentleman was too weird to factor into his current analysis. It wasn't the strangest time in his young life, but it was still notably dissonant from everything else. **Anyway** , perhaps 'useless' didn't describe those qualities as much as 'naïve'. Yes. The moment he disregarded that frame of mind is the moment everything started to come together for him.

_Compassion is wasted on the poor. They take it and become the parasites this world fears above all else. Charity breeds complacency, and complacency breeds more evil than unassisted greed ever will._

Javert deeply wished the Inspector would leave him alone from now on. Unassisted greed? The man's poorly explained ruminations did little to aid him in his ambitions, now that he was a grown man and alone. Especially now that the one _important_ mystery the voices hinted at was, for lack of a better word, 'solved'. Javert hated riddles, and useless riddles were absolutely disgusting.

Useless riddles...

The baguette refused to be ignored; it, too, had become a riddle. Irritably, he walked over and picked it up, tired of the searing guilt it pierced into his belly. He was hungry. He was honorable. He didn't take the food other people had honestly earned; he simply earned food for himself. He hadn't eaten all day yesterday, being too busy looking at the cogs in that clock. They were wooden with seventeen teeth each, which made sense and helped him understand his challenge. He was still hungry.

Tick tock.

Why did he take it?! What had possessed him to cave in to Valjean's misguided gesture? Or was it that he tried to take it under the pretense of compromise? 'I'll do it if you leave me alone'? 'Half for you, half for me'? 'I'll make it up to you, just let me take it for strength'?

Tick tock tick tock tick tock.

“...Maybe the last one,” he said to the clock.

Javert made his decision and dug his teeth into the spiced bread. He had committed no infraction of the law: the bread was freely offered, and Javert had not demanded any conditions for taking it. He would win the contested position and use his wages to return the favor to Valjean. And then Javert would never take silly favors from anyone again. The first time, and the last time. See? Javert had solved a simple conundrum that was in his power to solve. He didn't let himself be caught between two impossible perspectives, but rather found a third one. The conundrum was only presented when the third perspective was left out. It wasn't that hard.

“God's law versus the law of man...hmph! I'll simply obey both, unlike him.”

The bread tasted really good. Javert licked his teeth again.

* * *

 

Jean's teeth were on display today, flashing for his neighbors and workers. They were starting to look better with the proper care he was implementing, thanks to his fat bank. And everyone else flashed theirs in return. But he wondered if they were grinning at their hero or at the cash flow he was generating for them. He supposed it didn't matter. Not yet.

It was still a far cry from Montreuil, but it would surpass that enterprise in good time. That is, if he did everything right. He had factored Courant into his causality charts and found that, as long as the man was resolved to keeping his identity as the Inspector at arm's length, it actually reduced the possible bad consequences he would face as an industrialist. Javert would work honestly and consistently, even when his co-workers might flounder or burn out. Sieur Manager was already biased to hiring Javert over keeping Beaumont.

If nothing else, it was good to have Javert within seeing distance...as much as it irrationally intimidated him. The row from last night came as much from relieving his fears as it came from genuine frustration.

He stood outside of his office, but not before checking his personal chronometer. 11:58 in the morning, on October the 5th, the first thursday, in the year 1794. A chill in the air annoyed the farmers, but the atmosphere in the factory was hot and suspicious. Courant had them talking about whether the scruffy-looking laborer was trying to edge in on an indoor job. Supervisor Anger's jumpiness only made it worse. Poor girl, getting hounded with questions that weren't meant to be answered yet. But her anxiety was partly his fault. For any contest to take place, one of the workers had to be given the day off, in order to make room in the cog division. He already knew who, but he neglected to tell her with the matter of Alexandre. But she would know today.

11:59. He had to infer the time from the abundance of seconds that passed, as opposed to listening to a clock. The testing division had pendulums swinging at dozens of different intervals, making it impossible to keep time. Jean laughed: Javert would hate it in there. The man was practically a clock in both lifetimes, moving one foot in front of another to the rhythm of a single pendulum for all his life. It wasn't until...

Jean's stomach dropped. Why did he torment himself like this? If Javert was capable of putting it behind him...

The more he thought about it, the stranger Sieur Courant seemed to him. Why _was_ he able to adapt to the undoubtedly powerful despair of the memory of his death? Jean remembered the last newspaper he ever read in that life, combing the obituaries in a fit of self-pity, only to drop it on discovering the name of the Inspector he had finally accepted to come for him was shoved into the tiny corner reserved for notable suicides. He actually cried: from relief, from pure devastation, from weariness, from guilt, from confusion, from being reminded that Cosette was now beyond his reach. Was it from grief as well? If he felt like that just from hearing of the event, how in any hell could Javert walk around Faverolles as if it never happened?

On reading it, he couldn't shake the feeling of irony that tainted his shock. Why was it ironic? The man who sought to destroy his life ended up destroying his own? Jean banished such thoughts: they were disrespectful.

Cosette...how on earth could he wait for thirty years?

12:00. Javert walked through the factory entrance and past the foreman, and Jean was willing to bet that if the church bells still rang on days other than the Lord's day now, he would hear the clanging bells as soon as the man stepped onto the floor. Prompt and predictable, just like the police spy.

Wait.

Jean felt as if the revelation were staring him in the face, only to grab him and jostle him until he acknowledged it. It was so obvious. _Why was Javert not a police officer?_ Why would the man ever want to do anything else?! He could accept the man coming to Faverolles to investigate the thief that refused to be caught in the first life...but only as a man of the law. Learning of Javert's rebirth did nothing to change the fact that Javert had to come to Jean Valjean, as a commoner, seeking an honest job through competitive means.

???

Even as much as the different birth date and the different face puzzled him, that was one mystery that could not even begin to make sense. Holding different jobs? Sure, until becoming a strong arm of the law. But Javert had said he was a policeman before coming here. And yet he was unemployed! This...this was unprecedented!

Javert walked straight up to him, looking defiant. Defiant of what? He didn't know anymore! Apparently clocks could surprise people!

“I suspect we will not speak of last night.”

Jean wondered how many of the clock testers heard Javert say that. He blushed at the implication, despite his best effort at inhibition.

“...I expect all of my employees to be prudent and discreet. I expect the same of you, as a guest and a...contestant, I suppose.”

Javert grinned. It was a wolf's grin, without a trace of happiness, its only possible sentiment being hunger. It was the same grin at the hospital that night. Jean suppressed a shudder, as well as a twinge of petulance. So the man _did_ smile in the first life, whatever. It hardly counted.

...However, there was a bit of bread in that grin. Jean wasn't sure whether to feel victorious or just disgusted.

“I am glad to hear it! Beaumont should be applying to new businesses, if he has any sense in him.”

Jean had never seen the man happy, had he? Not even now. Not one real, _genuine_ smile. A smile would suit him, actually. Regardless of how little sense it would make, it would stretch his face pleasantly. It would make him seem...

He was sure his blush was spreading now. Javert, of all people, making him blush! It wasn't a feasible thought; he had gone over this before. God-fearing man, businessman, _not_ a man to chase after potential employees. And it was a weak, shallow gravitation besides. What on earth did Javert think about his reddening face?

“...Monsieur? If you are ill, you should not risk infecting the workforce.”

Ah.

“I am well, Courant.” He turned to face the cog division, thankfully with the door open. “I am merely feverish in anticipation. Today will be momentous for everyone, not just _you and Reginald Beaumont_.”

As expected, Jean heard from behind him and his left: “Is _that_ the one?!” But he didn't expect to hear: “That lanky creeper?!”

Sieur Manager turned around to see the overgroan oaf lumbering toward him and the guest of honor. Beaumont had cut his dark brown hair to only fall to his shoulders (not tied up today, curiously), dressed in the same type of off-white shirt that most of the men in the factory wore, trousers torn in places from carelessness, bad teeth...but all in all, not an unimpressive looking man. He was naturally toned to do simple manual labor over an extended duration. For drilling wood to make cogs? Perhaps not as well as someone whose former job required dexterity. Large hands didn't hurt, either. They didn't help, but they didn't hurt.

...Javert was lanky indeed. Valjean would see to it that the man ate better after this. He had no reason not to, really. But creeper? That was out of line. Ah, good, Gorbeau had come out with him.

“Beaumont, this is indeed the challenger of which I told you. If he's also ready, then we can get started.”

Jean saw both of them stagger a little, but Javert recovered more quickly.

“T-Today, Manager?”, asked Beamont in a quivering voice. “I-I thought you meant next...hm. You know what? I am ready.” He glared at Javert. “I will make it clear how ridiculous this whole thing is.”

“Monsieur Manager, what is all this?”, inquired Gorbeau. “So there _is_ a contested position?”

Poor Yelle. She didn't like surprises, so she must have told them everything.

“Indeed there is, and I'm glad you came to ask. I need you to take the rest of the day off for this to work. _You will be paid for the time_ ,” he added as Gorbeau looked murderous. Jean was sure the man's expression was becoming blissful at the thought of being able to tend to his ailing son.

“... _Monsieur!_ ”, Gorbeau declared as he bowed melodramatically. “You are a man among men!”

“I am merely a man,” answered Jean coolly. “Monsieur Courant?”

“...Let the games begin.”

* * *

 

Javert felt the same pall of anxiety as when he stepped into the Palais de Justice in Nice. It affected all the job opportunities he pursued, but it thankfully reduced upon repetition and over time. It never went away, though. Even the simplest errands as a twentysomething made him nervous, made him aware of his face that he needed to keep neutral.

He wondered if the Inspector had the same problem. All the times of which he heard spoken to him were of either when the man was in an orphanage or after he had already become a prison guard and onward. Maybe getting older meant being able to ignore that sort of thing. Hmm.

Javert took note of the layout of the factory when he first came to Faverolles two weeks ago. Most of the working areas were shared in a central square: woodcutters bringing in the raw material, carpenters carving out the shapes of different clocks, glass blowers in a distant corner to avoid problems with heat, metal workers in another corner for the same reason, and clock testers in the middle; all jobs that needed toil over accuracy. He liked that. Three areas were closed off behind thick walls and doors for precision work: making the exact shape of the wheels and teeth for the cogs, fine-tuning the pendulums to swing in the correct period, and re-shaping the amorphous glass to fit into clocks that demanded it. This was presumably so the precision workers wouldn't be distracted by the general hub. He also liked this.

Valjean's office was on the middle of the right side wall as Javert walked in, rather close to the cog workers. He wasn't sure how he felt about that.

Javert walked with Beaumont into the far right corner of the building for the cog work division. But it occurred to him how well the overall setup functioned for a low-cost clock manufacturer. The previous owner, Bain, manufactured windows, so the only change Valjean needed to make was putting up the walls for the extra divisions the new management needed. Production began only two weeks after Bain was ousted, so said Javert's landlord.

Why was Valjean making clocks, anyway?

Tick tock.

Beaumont and Courant entered the module, and all the chattering inside stopped dead. What a nuisance. These people were still just as gossip-happy as when he saw them before. Oh, well. He had learned to ignore it in the deinking mill, he could learn how to do it for this group of people.

Yelle Anger met gazes with Javert and pointed to the empty seat at the long stone table. It was ever so slightly slanted, the table; was that to help the driller? As he took his seat, he saw the small auger sitting aside a small, unfinished cog. He found himself looking at a very confused blonde man. His partner, the one who would turn the wood as he drilled the teeth into it, Javert remembered. Working with another person was unfortunate, but he understood the importance of it for police work, so why not here? He also saw the drawings of standardized cogs on the section of the table at which they sat, to be used as references when they shaved the cogwheels to perfection. Mlle. Anger set a wood shaver down with the blonde man. All was well.

“For the most part, this is going to be filling out the customers' orders normally,” started Anger. “But I will be watching both of you to see who has the most frequent and most consistent output. Courant's learning curve will _not_ be taken into account, as agreed.”

Beaumont grinned at Courant. Javert gave a wry smile to no one in particular.

“However, he _is_ allowed to finish that cog in front of him before we start.”

The blonde man grunted. Adelbert? Javert believed that was the man's name. It was a fair name, for a German.

Javert gripped the auger without another word and set the drilling end upon the excess wood. Lines were drawn where he was supposed to drill, which pleasantly surprised him. All he needed to do was drill along the lines as much as he could and shave off whatever was left. That was excellent! He had planned on watching Beaumont at first to learn how, but...Javert found that he could only learn job skills the hard way. Seeing was not doing.

Seventeen teeth, like the clock at his home. He was going to win. He confirmed that Adelbert was ready and turned the crank.

* * *

 

Three hours had passed, and instead of Javert growing too comfortable with the process, he understood the problems a cog maker faced much better. If the wood wasn't level with the table, then drilling it was a lost cause. If the wood was oval-shaped, then the adjustors had to switch to a smaller size cog template in order to salvage the wood. If either of the adjustors' hands slipped, it was only acceptable if the drill were leaving enough space between the excess wood and the drawn lines. Only one of these things actually happened, and Javert was glad for it as he spied the cog stacks Beaumont and his partner had. The man was fair at his job; that wasn't what made him the weak link.

What made him the weak link was that the others were better. With what spare attention he had, he saw the stacks to his left were taller than the ones to his right. And those of Adelbert and Javert were rivaling the ones on the left. Of course, they were not competing with those people...but he did see a glimmer of pride in Adelbert as the latest stack was completed. Pride? Yes, it had to be pride.

Javert was not complacent with the process, despite the tedium of drilling and shaving cog after cog after cog...but still...something about the repetition dulled the senses a little. His mind wandered at two hours into the grind, much to his embarrassment. Still, actions are what define a man, not thoughts.

_How could he exist?_

The Inspector had failed. Javert almost had to laugh, but not because he was amused. He was angry! Javert wanted to believe the alternative 'him' was strong enough to take down the Thief. But it was clear how that wasn't the case after the barricades. Two options: resolve the paradox that plagued him, or leave it to a more intelligent policeman. Take action. He hated how severely the bond between him and the Inspector was cut, forcing him into witnessing some abstract emotional state that he couldn't identify. He could name it, but he couldn't identify it.

Tick. Tock.

God's law. The law of Man. Two pairs of teeth that grinded into each other, pushing each other forward.

Tick. Tock.

Adelbert grimaced at his hands slipping; thankfully, Javert was slightly further away from the lines than he should have been. Adelbert grimaced with full teeth. Teeth that mashed against each other, neither one yielding. One set of teeth would have to pulverize the other in order to advance.

Tick. Tock. Crunch. Crunch.

The Inspector must have seen the two laws as analogous with human teeth. But it was obvious that they were complimentary cogs! It was obvious!

Tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.

It made some sense, actually. The Inspector wanted to believe that he was purely a man of the law, but he wasn't. He was filled with vengeance, vying to marry his irrelevant emotion with the stalwart system he rightfully treasured. Those were what the Inspector put into his clock, while Javert realized the truth: vengeance was human teeth, not teeth of a cog. It was better to feel nothing at all, to let the cog turn itself.

Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tick. Tock. Tick?

Perhaps it was shame. The Inspector realized the evil in his heart, the evil all men are born into, and was repulsed. But Javert felt nothing when the Seine chewed the fool up, so he supposed he would never know.

Dong. Dong. Dong. Dong. Dong.

“Five o'clock. This contest is over.”

* * *

 

Javert staggered at the time. Five? Not three?

* * *

 

Jean Valjean found it difficult to articulate what he felt at Anger reporting the results. Javert's work was more precise and more cautious of mistakes than that of Beaumont, and the output was on par with the others. Hiring the phantom of a man would be good for business, as he expected. He had already consulted Isadore about taking on an extra pair of hands so the baker could spend time with his family, and it went over very well. Beaumont was not out of a job.

But what to feel? What to think? His mind was blank. He definitely had a surge of emotion at the news, but of what kind or even degree was unknowable. It seemed to eat itself, excitement and regret and self-doubt and anxiety running circles around each other until it wore a groove in his heart. He supposed it was better this way, to feel nothing at all. Just for now.

He walked into the cog division to announce the news, handing Beaumont the slip of paper he had Isadore write as insurance. If looks could kill. But he seemed to grudgingly appreciate that Sieur Manager hadn't put him out to pasture, if Jean were to be crude. Javert made no particularly strong reaction, obviously expecting this outcome all through the contest.

“Congratulations, Courant. You have defied, nay, _met_ expectations.”

“Of course,” replied the victor. “I always set out to finish what I start.”

Jean Valjean winced.

“...Monsieur, are you certain you haven't taken ill?”

Jean Valjean licked his teeth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What do you guys think of this story so far? It's got a ways to go, but I'm VERY curious about your opinions.


	5. Poison

 A peculiar anticlimax fell upon Jean Valjean as the rest of October rolled past him and the rest of the factory. That was it. No confrontation, no half-assed arrest attempt, no existential plea, no heart-crushing discussion of despair, no attempts to mop up the bad blood between them and embrace a happier relationship...just an awkward battle of industry and an empty-hearted declaration of employment. Javert really had defied expectations.

“Jean, you should take a break from your thoughts and hold your nephew. You are so distracted lately, it worries me.”

Jean smiled at his sister and carefully pulled the (currently) silent infant into his arms.

Was it supposed to be this way? The former Inspector fading into one worker among many? The questions he posed about why he left the police force were only met with a shrug and a simple: “It wasn't for me after all.” The Inspector's eyes seemed sad yet not grievous, as if he really had rejected an improper calling and learned to live with that. If Javert hadn't said it so simply and sincerely, Jean would have instantly denied it and persisted. But Javert was not a liar, at least not a good one. There was real defeat in the young man's eyes, and he felt too far out of his depth to address it.

He had always assumed Javert to be more ambitious than that, to crusade against evil as much as his misguided heart would allow. As simple as it made things for him, seeing that stone-faced man that plagued so many of his dreams just walk out of the cog workshop without a word to anyone perturbed him. Jean felt as if he were allowing something to slowly take hold of his life that he shouldn't have been. But it couldn't be helped.

Alexandre cooed. Jean tickled the babe's chin to earn a little grin, but his calloused finger startled the child into a wail. He did his best to mimic the soothing ritual Jeanne had perfected, eventually getting Alexandre to be calm again. His thoughts resumed.

Snow would start to fall soon. Javert would not stomp through it, hunting for compromised peasants or genuine devils. Javert would go home to where M. Arnaud would, shivering for warmth, probably calculating how much he would need to store enough food for the winter. Javert was a peasant. It felt _wrong._

...Maybe wrong was good.

After exactly seven minutes, Jean handed Alexandre back to his mother. Holding his nephew was actually quite odd. He felt drawn to the pitiful thing, but it wasn't the heart-wrenching sorrow and fulfilling devotion he dreamed of with Fantine's daughter. Perhaps that was to be expected: Cosette was abused and needed protection, while Alexandre was to live the kind of life Jean never had. The boy would be loved, but no one needed to fuss over him. Unless, of course, Alexandre would turn out to be spoiled. He had to turn away from Jeanne to hide a sneer.

Seven children, and he still had to look after all of them. The only difference was that he was _able_ to this time. Caring for a spoiled child was not something he felt he would have to tolerate, given this fact. Dear Jeanne would appreciate the discipline, and Alexandre would appreciate the difficulty of being upright. He doubted Beaumont had the presence of mind to consider decisions like this, with how much the fool brooded. But the man was kneading bread now! He had some of it; it had good texture. An evil eye from the man didn't ruin the flavor, and Reginald would learn to count his blessings soon enough. Hopefully.

Javert, on the other hand...hmm. Wrong _was_ good.

Jean glanced around their new home. As a tree-pruner, he had seen it and envied the lucky fools that dwelled in it, envied it with shameful passion. Only lightly shameful, however, as the previous factory owner moved into it before creating his dungeon disguised as profit hunting. The sight of the house became abominable to him as he ached from the sting of the foreman's sadistic whip. The manager himself had to be lured out of his office to even acknowledge it, and even then he was dismissive at best. It wasn't until he persuaded his young mistress to find the proof of wage theft in that very house that Jean had him, and Anger delivered. M. Bain saw fit to abandon it after the bastard was cast out of Faverolles, and the townsfolk all agreed it was a fitting spoil for the victor.

Poor girl. It had taken him months to build her up to that task. But if she could put up with someone like that man, then she could put up with an assortment of woodworkers, like she herself had declared.

At first, merely standing in the fat, two-story cottage was enough to stagger him. He had done it, thought Jean. One and a half years of toil and rallying his co-workers, one and half of years of raising sympathy, of forcing himself to smile, of nearly giving up. The reward stood solid and proud all around him. He had beaten all the odds and soundly averted his fate, avoided repeating the dreams that haunted him. Faverolles would soon have a gentleman among its number and not yet another thief.

And then his nieces and nephews tore through their new house with unrestrained glee, himself and their poor mother trying to recall them. For better and for worse, reflected Jean. The time would come when he had to endure the tests for being a true gentleman. And his sister's children would have to learn how to behave. Hopefully along with their father...Jean had to keep trying to bring Bastian back to his senses.

For everyone's sake; besides hearing his nephews and nieces complaining about their father's absense, he grew tired of Gerard lamenting to whomever would hear him about Bastian neglecting him and the other card players. Jean was sure other folk (such as  _the man's family_ ) simply kept silent about the matter out of surrender to the moral insanity that had gripped one of their own. But Jean had not come this far to be defeated by a prodigal father. Jean Valjean would be a gentleman and, God help him, so would  _he._

Soon – by springtime, if his dreams wouldn't fail him – the pessimistic of the bourgeoisie would visit his town and inspect him for possibly overcoming his upbringing and being a genuine member of high society. The belief they would hold of it being impossible was not the concern. The tests were simple enough, but the proof they sought was nerve-wracking: to be a distantly charitable man who preferred those of his new social status, or to continue this little revolution across France and usurp businesses with his more liberal policies and rising popularity. He dreamed of his first life as accepting the powerless position of offering meager alms to the unfortunate (with one man glowering at him all the while) in order to avoid exposure to inquiring parties, not just the police. Non-confrontational for the most part, and yet fulfilling. That would be easier to do. But he was honest and clean this time, and his ambition that the other man would have balked at had paid in full. Stopping at one liberated factory felt like wasted opportunity. He would lose support and reputation, but so many souls could dream of better days. What to do?

...The other man? Javert was toying with his thoughts. Such a silly man, really. Javert, that is. It would take nothing short of legitimate business to convince someone like him that these efforts were worthwhile. While, of course, legitimate business was preferred. Stability was key in transforming the fates of the poor, so why not provide that by his own hands and expand his company as an added bonus? It made sense. The only trick was, as the plan stood _for now_ , convincing his fellow business owners to adopt his approach toward employees. By the saints.

Literally.

Jean was pleased that the campaign for spreading his clocks was being accepted, if the bags of francs rolling up to the town were any indication. Let the church bells only ring on the Lord's day. Let us no longer be complacent to their toll in the house that honors His creation. We shall keep time through our own power, and it may be convenient as well. We shall silence them on Saturday night and wake to walk as a community to their peal in the name of the saints that guide us, and for no other reason. The church will be pure again.

Jean had spotted Javert last week in the pews. Despite his dark face, he did look as if he belonged in there. Perhaps he was struggling with His teachings and couldn't hide it? M. Arnaud had insisted on getting his new tenant some proper Sunday clothes and made a point of telling 'Monsieur Sauveur' all about it. The francs he had slipped Arnaud were not being hoarded, it would seem. Javert looked good; his face looked fuller. He was starting to put on a little weight, and a good thing, too.

...Jean considered reclaiming part of the physique that the Toulon prison had given him. To craft his body for his own sake, for making a grander presentation upon others, and not as a consequence of being forced into ridiculous feats of strength as less than filth. The idea appealed to him. Perhaps he could shovel snow this year as a start.

“Jean?! Watch where you step, mon frère!”

Jean blinked and noticed how he was about to trip on the flight of stairs. He was moving to fetch some water from the kitchen but forgot where his feet were. At least it wasn't as bad as when he woke up from the sewer dreams. He was amazed he could find the chamber pot to vomit in time.

“I am fine, ma soeur.”

He padded down to fetch the water, each step deliberately placed. But he kept his back straight. Shoulders relaxed. Gaze respectfully distant, yet polite. Not betraying any real emotion, like how thinking about Javert seemed to make his mind wander. The man was no longer a wild card, and he had to accept that now.

How ironic. The hunter was tamed. Perhaps now that it was done, he could relent and let Yelle wear some leaves on her dress through the winter. But after that, absolutely not. Sieur Sauveur had standards, after all.

* * *

 

Should he tell him? No. It was difficult enough for Javert to remember it, recreating that feeling of watching himself betray every lesson he had ever been taught to torment himself. But was it true torment? After all, he couldn't feel the shame anymore. All he had was the snow piling outside the house in which he lived as he remembered watching himself, watching her die. He needed to learn how to feel shame for it again.

The church bells rang, and he squirmed in the pew. He saw and felt Jean glancing at him, marking the second time they had established contact outside of the factory (since employment). What a horrible place to remind him of his silly impurity! He was trying to learn the good book all over again, and the damnable brown eyes were summoning that depressing conversation. Police work wasn't for him, after all.

Not if he did things like that.

The modus operandi was only the same in two details: a letter opener was used every time by the monster, cutting up women and weak-willed men left and right. “Submissive types”, his sergeant de villes deemed it, and it was accurate. Javert had earned the title of Inspector for himself three months before, and this case was a solid bet for boosting his profile. He needed it, with earning the title so young and therefore also earning the ill will of his new peers. He had refused planting someone to lure the bastard out, in no small part because he didn't trust that no one else would simply let the 'victim' remain without taking her for their own desires. After all, there was no proof that the killer was acting alone. Not willing to accept the 'naïve' approach, Inspector Laurence convinced the commisaire to put the case in his charge instead and planted a young, dark-skinned woman named Lia anyway. Seniority. At least it wasn't spite...? He wouldn't have been surprised if it were spite, though.

Still, Javert had a chance: if he intercepted the killer (and whoever else) before undoubtedly cornering the poor girl beyond other policemen's aid, then all that needed to be done was knock him out and cuff him. He took double patrol to ensure he would have enough of a window to cross into Laurence's area at the time of the sting.

Inspector Javert sneaked upon the scene (in an alleyway, of course) and found that he was correct to deny the plant strategy. Laurence and his men were taken out in a fight with two of the perpetrators, with both of them also thankfully unconscious, while Lia was about to be set upon by the only one left. He didn't have a speck of blood on his clothes. He had pulled back and waited for this, expecting this kind of trap. He was the killer.

Javert had all the proof he needed, and Lia would attest to it. He sprinted at the man to subjugate him, only to find that the brute was indeed a brute. Javert was shoved against the rightside wall, but he was only slightly dazed. The killer moved quickly, pulling out the letter opener to only briefly gleam in the moonlight before...before...

He couldn't move.

Lia was looking straight at him, and he lost control of his body. He was taking in the scene, motionless, letting every detail fill his mind. She was shrieking. She was screaming at him, something, he couldn't place the words. All he saw was her face. She had the darkest hair, getting covered in blood as terrified green eyes started to lose their focus. Her neck was seizing up, a slender neck, one that would have been pleasing to the eye. She was going into shock. He couldn't move. He could not move. The Inspector was yelling, spurring forth his men to catch brigands and murderers time and time again, yet Javert, here and now, was planted in the ground.

Why couldn't he move?!

It was done. His body finally released him, but not before engaging the exact opposite action. He was possessed, overwhelming the monster with every trick he knew and every ounce of force he had. If that was what true fury was, then he was glad he only felt it once. His mind was gone, replaced with a white-hot rush and a thrumming pain so powerful that it demanded nothing but blood on the ground. He cuffed the unconscious man and dragged the thief of life, blood and all, to the Palais. On the way, he directed the patrolmen he saw to the alley. Javert was never more glad to wear his uniform, but not because of the sight they made together. It was because he decided that, after that one last day of separating himself from the vagabond criminal creed, he would never wear it again.

He couldn't move. And that was exactly what he told the commisaire. The man tried to reassure Javert that new, especially young, policemen found this problem often...but Javert was not a new policeman. He had the best training imaginable, beyond imagination. And even if he didn't, youth was certainly no excuse. If Javert were liable to be so motionless at the sight of a girl being murdered...then he wasn't fit to protect anyone. He resigned his post without learning the man's name.

Laurence was discharged. Too little, too late.

He could still hear the screaming every now and then...even though it had lost its righteous power. It sounded as if it was coming from much further away. It mixed with the other voices unnaturally well, even the dissonant one at the Inspector's death. How typical! Javert had a real sin upon his soul, and he was cursed to witness the fool's hell that the other Javert had inflicted upon himself.

The news of Faverolles were a welcome way to escape from Lia's family. He had nothing to say for himself that they didn't say to him. But it was so ironic! Jean Valjean, the Thief, the Phantom Menace, was actually a welcome change from his current way of life.

...And he still was, Javert realized.

It was an innocent question, the kind any employer would ask. It wasn't Sieur Valjean's fault. All of it simply defied what he expected. Javert had defied expectations, so it was better to have no expectation at all. To be a humble factory worker. Perhaps having those eyes peer at him in curiosity, unintentionally making him wish that social strata didn't exist and Christianity was nothing but a story to raise children, was a fitting way to help him remember his sin and repent properly.

Javert would not tell Jean Valjean about Lia. Not unless...no. It was presumptuous to think that Valjean would still aim to consort with the lower class. He had been elevated. Valjean was not just a hero but a mover and shaker now. In time, the man might even leave Faverolles to leave him and the other workers to keep making his clocks.

Tick tock.

That wasn't so bad. Clocks didn't scream. Or if they did, their teeth got in the way.

* * *

 

Bastian tried to deny it, but it was clawing at him relentlessly. Courant had drawn his eye. Cutthroat, swarthy, severe, yet with a mysterious air about him. Filling out, as sitting next to him attested. Probably hated kids as much as he did now. Yes...yes, he would try. If nothing else, he would get the man to do something other than muttering about clocks and screaming. It made Adelbert nervous; even though Bastian had no chance with him, the gesture would still be appreciated. But this Javert suited his tastes a little better anyway.

He had given up being a family man, so he might as well get what he wanted now.


	6. Community

Gerard was concerned.

As the general foreman appointed by the inspiring Valjean, he found little issue with factory workers socializing within polite parameters. But was it so? That was the question that prodded at him as he reviewed his notes on employee performance. Politeness seemed to be something that Courant supplied out of obligation, overall preferring to keep silent and make cogs. Not to mention, the faces the man made at some of the things Bastian said were as suspicious as Gerard was of both the men interacting so, for lack of a better word, “freely”. Finally, it could have been nothing, but Javert had been spying on the factory before working there...for what was such a sly fox searching? What were the goings-on between these two?

He wasn't sure if informing M. Manager was a good idea, seeing as this only started a week ago. Bastian would drop off the last of the lumber for the day (much earlier than he usually did!) and then wait to intercept Courant at 5 on the dot. Gerard watched Bastian try to make small talk with Javert, and fail, only to somehow trick the fellow into confusion or exasperation. One conversation was particularly “off” to him.

 _“You always leave this factory alone, dear fellow! Have you no one to accompany you?_ ”

_“I have no need of company.”_

_“Oh, don't be silly. Need is not the matter here! Surely your lifestyle here could use some enrichment? Some_ human interaction? _”_

_“...Human interaction?”_

_“Indeed!”_

_“Is that somehow different from what we're doing now?”_

_“...Perdon?”_

_“That is my question, monsieur.”_

_“Javert, you should stop taking what I say so_ seriously. _I simply--”_

 _“Simply_ what? _I tire of this line of...intrigue, or whatever you may think it is. If you want something of me, state it plainly or leave me be.”_

_“...You are the most singular man I have ever met.”_

_“State your business or leave.”_ Gerard did wonder if Javert worked with the police. Javert had the same gruffness in his normal mood that the Chief Inspector did, before all of the Faverolles police were humiliated...

_“My only business outside of my job is to live my life. As it should be for you.”_

_“You did not answer my question...Monsieur Bastian is beginning to sound like my old employer.”_ Javert, actually sharing part of his past to someone? The foreman staggered a little at the time.

_“Oh? What of him, then? Did he scoff at humor as well?”_

_“...Perdon? Scoffing at humor?”_

_“...Yes. Please tell me. I am interested.”_ Gerard noted the sudden weariness in Bastian's voice.

_“No one truly scoffs at humor. It is more as if one is realizing how inappropriate that instance of humor is to the situation. For one to scoff at all of humor would be too grand and too foolhardly, I would think.”_

Javert had drollness down to an art. It was almost humorous in and of itself.

_“...Do you have any hobbies? Something to do other than carving wood?”_

By David's blood, Bastian! Javert clearly wanted nothing to do with him, and yet the prodigal husband insisted and insisted. If only Gerard himself had the chutzpah to insist this strongly for Bastian to come back to cards with the others. Adelbert even refused to come without Bastian there, but it wasn't like the bastard would realize that with how oblivious he was.

Come to think of it, Javert and Bastian were like two peas in a pod in that regard.

Wait...he had tried to put it out of his mind, but it was a valid point in this case. A prodigal husband doggedly trying to make friends with a recent inhabitant of where he worked? He doubted Javert knew about this, but it would have certainly justified the askance looks Bastian was receiving. Gerard would have done the same. Perhaps he was never meant to ignore this damnable fact about his friend.

Shame, really.

Gerard closed his notebook and came out to break his fast with Alexis. It was an unusual name for her to pick, but she seemed attached to it. His dear wife could go by whatever she pleased, so long as she kept discreet about their personal choices. As discreet as Javert the Monk, Gerard thought with a silent chuckle.

Today, he would tell Valjean about his brother-in-law. So long as Sieur le Maire didn't peer in on all of them again...

* * *

 

Chief Inspector Rayne rattled off the criminal happenings to the mayor as both of them strolled around the still mostly slumbering Faverolles. The sun had only woken the farmers and whoever might be planning something. Like that Bastian Dupont. Today, he and Sieur Romaine would find _something_ to prove that the little sodomite was plotting religious deviance to further sully himself in the eyes of his family and the Lord. Jeanne had suffered enough!

“...And that was all. Not worth disturbing you in the evening, as you can see, Monsieur.”

“No indeed,” replied the mayor sleepily. “But it was worth disturbing me at dawn.”

Dolan Rayne took a deep breath to keep from getting flustered.

“I woke you up also to discuss Valjean, actually. You said you were interested in anything surreptitious about him, and I believe I found something.”

Jacques Romaine looked wide awake.

“Speak, man!”

“ _Well_ ,” started Rayne with a sly smile, “that devil Bastian has been acting oddly lately. Yesterday, one of his co-workers came to the station with a complaint of being harassed by him for no foreseeable reason. Nothing worth my men's time if it were anyone else, as you know. I was thinking perhaps he is trying to induct a new 'card game' member.”

“...Which co-worker?”

Inspector Rayne shifted his eyes to the pastures as he recollected.

“...Current. Yes, the half-breed that moved here in September.”

The mayor's eyes shone with a predatory ambition. Rayne knew any chance Sieur Romaine had for revenge, after him and the police being rendered completely pointless about Bain, would be a chance taken with vigor. But he privately admitted to not sharing the same vengeance for the factory usurper as his superior. No, it was all for Jeanne. It would be worth it. And it would take the edge off the embarrassment he felt whenever he saw one of those damn clocks. They were _everywhere._

“It is promising, if what you say is real. Hmph! As if Valjean naming his nephew after himself were bad enough. Now his brother-in-law is consorting with a Gypsy as well as a Jew. It would be questionable in anyone's eyes, even Valjean's.”

“...Well,” Rayne was hesitant to add, “Current did seem genuinely annoyed. I doubt he would join the 'game', but it still stands to reason that Bastian is adding to the group. Adelbert tells me the next game is scheduled for Saturday night, when the clocks get shut off. We'll see then.”

Sieur Romaine nodded. Both of them fell silent, with nothing but the sound of two pairs of boots sloshing around in the snow that fell overnight. The last of the apples would be harvested soon, and the land workers would retire for the rest of the season. But what of Valjean's factory? wondered Rayne. Would it go into the bleakest of cold days like Bain? Pfft! He doubted it; the man had a heart softer than cotton, no matter how much he strode around like a would-be gentleman.

Jeanne, though...she was above all of that. She could be the most refined lady without even trying. Something as simple as the way she smiled would be enough to impress the stuffiest ponce. He just knew it.

“Was there anything else, Inspector?”

“Hm? Oh, no, Monsieur le Maire.”

“Well.” Distantly, the sound of Romaine prattling on about the new housing additions – it had nothing to do with him! – bounced off the now gleaming snow. The sun coated it in the most exquisite red.

Dolan had a sudden craving for apples.

* * *

 

Yelle Anger found a new leaf to add to her collection. It was from one of the older maple trees, finally fluttering down after its mother regretfully left it to grace the cold ground, the last of the crimson baubles decorating the dormant wonder. Now it sat peacefully in the palm of her hand. She would look after it throughout the cold winter, along with its cousins in her new home.

It was so red! It defied the greys and whites and the occasional greens of this dreary town. Leaves were bold in their fashion, like small children that fancied themselves barons and baronesses but would never achieve the titles. They dressed for how they felt, not what they were. So much was to be learned from leaves...if it weren't for them, she would still be the caretaker for Samson. But when Valjean asked her for the last time to pluck up what little courage she had, a tiny yellow one fell onto his head out of nowhere. Small and hazy lines wavered across the small body, but the crease in the middle was bold and true. It knew better than she did.

That was just last year, Yelle realized with some astonishment.

She found a dry spot underneath the maple tree and sat down for a spell. The cog work wouldn't start for a couple of hours, so she could afford to let her mind wander. Mostly, her eyes just wandered. She spotted that silly Inspector and the even sillier mayor, talking about housing or something equally mundane. She had to shift in her spot a little as the sun rose higher, making the snow glare at anyone who looked at it from a poor angle. But it was fine. It was better than sitting in a house all by herself.

Valjean had bought it for her once his business had enough profit, which was tremendously gracious and even more so unnecessary, but she had to admit to feeling awkward. It was bad enough that her workers only respected her half the time, making her position there all the more noticeable. Yelle was a lonely woman, but she knew that she could have been something far worse by now.

“Are you going to sit there all morning?”

Yelle looked up at the sound of an unmistakeable voice. Javert, the one person who was even more awkward than her at the factory. He definitely felt out of place there. But right now, trodding in the sunny snow, he was a welcome addition to the surrounding elements. He wouldn't hold whatever happened against her.

“Not at all, monsieur,” Yelle responded. “I simply wanted to enjoy the beauty of our town. What little of it there is.”

Javert didn't seem to appreciate the joke. He glanced around and shifted his feet in the melting slosh.

“...Are you going to sit there...?”

Oh, dear. She wasn't anticipating that his clumsy demeanor would follow him from the cog division. But she got nervous and half-brained just standing around Sieur Manager, so she had little right to criticize.

“Yes. I am going to sit here. And,” she decided, “you are going to join me.”

Yelle patted the rest of the dry spot by the maple tree with a smile to the stiff-looking man. Javert did not move.

“...I would be late for work.”

“Nonsense!”, she chided. “It won't be time until Monsieur Pomme chases me off his land. That will be in, I would say, an hour and a half.”

Javert looked nervously at the sunline. Did he always tell the time by the sun? In that case, why would he feel that he was running late for work? Unless...

“...You've gotten used to all the clocks, haven't you?”

Ah! That made him flush.

“Nothing of the sort, mademoiselle. I simply...am not used to waking up this early.”

Hmm.

“Perhaps. I like to come here every now and then, before everyone on this side of the la--”

“There isn't _really_ a Monsieur Pomme, is there?”, interrupted Javert. “Who on earth would pick such a ridiculous name?”

He...he wasn't serious, was he? Yelle couldn't help but laugh at how serious he looked.

“N-No, Monsieur! That was a little joke, no pommes but the ones on the trees.”

In time, she would be able to take some leaves from the last of those, too. They were usually boring, though, only one of two really worth her fascination. Maybe the ones that were as red as Javert's face would be good. She was having far too much fun.

“I don't like lies.”

“Nor do I,” Yelle shot back with mirth. “Not without some sugar or water to help them down the throat. And the core of a lie – eugh. I will never understand how Bastian can eat them.”

Bastian...that was right. Javert instantly looked uncertain, sheepish. She could have told him that the police were going to ignore him, but she doubted it would have changed his mind. But it was a troubling matter.

“...Is he still bothering you? Bastian, that is,” she added, feeling that he would ask.

“...Not exactly.”

That wasn't exactly an answer.

“How do you mean?”

Javert finally came over to sit next to her. It wasn't a sudden change; he considered it, walked toward her and moved back, teetered for a while, and then finally came over in a huff. What on earth was he debating? The ground was dry, the silly boy. She noticed how much fuller his beard was becoming as he sat down. Had he given up shaving?

“...I am going to a card game this Saturday. He invited me.”

A card game?

“...Oh! That's nice.” What was she supposed to say?!

“If you say so,” Javert shot back at her. “I figured that maybe, if I went, then he would stop pestering me about God knows what. I could be making a mistake.”

Probably.

“Is that the only reason?”

Javert slowly turned his head to look askance at her. What did she do? It was a perfectly innocent question! Sort of. Well, maybe not. Oops.

“...I trust that we are speaking as employees here, and not as...whatever.”

“...Of course,” Yelle decided to concede. “I don't want any odd goings-on with my—er, Sieur Manager's workers. If there is something else you're hiding, then I must insist you tell me.”

She felt like she was interrogating a witness. A witness to what, though? Javert paused.

“Adelbert is going to be there. I have never seen the man talk. I wonder what he has to say,” said Javert, his face becoming progressively more uncomfortable. He could blush for an entire girls' school.

“That would be a sight to see. Or rather, a sound to hear.”

Suddenly, Javert recoiled and stood up. What now?!

“Forget I said that. Bastian seems suspicious to me, and I want to see that there isn't anything untoward happening in this 'game' of which he speaks.”

...Bullshit.

“You are fond of Adelbert, are you not? He is certainly fond of you.” Exactly in what way, she wasn't sure. But the German did smile at him more and more. Perhaps Javert's muttering had grown on him.

“ _Mademoiselle Anger, this conversation is over._ Don't speak of this to anyone.”

“Javert, do not speak out of turn.”

That shut him down faster than anything else she could attempt. The man respected authority, that was clear. And she was an authority over him, even as she looked up at him from the dry spot under the sleeping maple tree. Something about that pleased her greatly.

“Before you go, there is something I wish to say to you. Stop muttering as you work. It distracts your co-workers, and it makes me worry about you.”

“...I do not mutter.”

“Yes, you do. Good morning.”

If her understanding of him was accurate, he would leave now. She had ended the conversation. And sure enough, even though he looked ready to kill, he turned and made deliberately soft and ordered steps toward the church square. Perhaps he was going to buy some bread. Beaumont hopefully didn't spit too much into the dough.

November was shaping up to be interesting, if nothing else.

* * *

 

Jean Valjean felt his blood boiling as Gerard told him of the card game. Something about hearing it in this manner made the ugly truth all too clear to him yet again: he was tending to Bastian's _seven children_ , and the man was still playing card games. Getting stronger was suddenly much more appealing to him. He wanted Sieur Romaine to finish the walls on the latest cottage (instead of fruitlessly spying on his factory!) so he could punch through them.

“That's not the only thing, Monsieur.”

Jean instantly turned his head to look at Gerard and saw him cringe. He was sure he looked murderous, but he couldn't help it.

“Speak.”

“I-I only learned of it at lunchtime, but Courant will be attending as well. W-Wouldn't know what to make of that myself, but--”

Jean didn't listen any further. His head was pounding too much to hear that well anyway, rage quickly mixing with that same anxiety that refused to leave him be throughout his factory management. He wouldn't know what to make of him attending, either. Except that...

...This was not good. Javert, of all people, going to some cockamamie event that Bastian and Gerard were organizing. Javert did not play games. Something was off. He could not ignore the skew that Javert created on his charts anymore. With so many implications to consider for every minor decision, he already had enough to review for his business and otherwise without Javert being thrown into the Bastian-is-a-terrible-person problem. He had to do something.

...Perhaps he would go, too.


	7. Absurd

 Javert Courant had arrived half an hour early to the specified location. Walk into the church square from the south, take a left just after the bakery, head straight past the police station toward the hideous thatch-roof cottage, circle to the back of said cottage, go in a slight diagonal up-and-left through the other houses until an oversized bush border for an old red-roofed chateau comes into view, climb over the bushes, and then just walk up to the parlor-side door and let yourself in. He reasonably guessed that one of the card players was the chateau's owner, or that the owner was oblivious to people walking up to his home from an odd angle. Since he wasn't sure which one was true, he actually stood outside of the snow-topped bush border and...waited. Was it actually half an hour early?

Why did he do this to himself?

His fellow policemen in Nice appreciated that he was always early for patrol and filing reports. But he did that out of necessity: being exactly on time never failed to make him feel as if he were forgetting something. On the other side of that, being early either made him incredibly anxious for what was to come or made his thoughts wander until he became so disoriented that he had to fake an intimidating manner that probably was not very convincing. But it was better than leaving anything behind. The less dutiful patrollers would have scoffed at overactive nerves like that display showed, hunting down their own criminals with a subtle yet undeniable laziness that seemed common to the gendarmerie. Perhaps that was why. If he were just on time, then he was no better than them, and they probably forgot items and facts for their work all the time. But then, they would be discharged...? Maybe they reminded each other? Or maybe they were quicker at remembering things like that than he was.

Maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe having all the clocks shut off was unnerving him.

As he reminisced about his childhood, that first hour in New Faverolles, he couldn't mistake the sound of ticking left and right throughout the town. Open doors to businesses and houses shamelessly carried the echo of cog teeth pushing eternally forward, filling his ears with an eerie dirge. That, more than anything else, made Sieur Valjean's little paradise all the more alien to him. So many of the clocks were out of synchrony, collectively making as much as eight ticks per one second. Funnily enough, the discord between the seconds was lessened as he spent more time there, either because his neighbors were adjusting the clocks, or he was getting used to the song that was doubtlessly ignored by most people, beginning to hear the tiny moments of harmony that burst to life and quickly faded. No, they had to be adjusting the clocks; the clashing ticks must have annoyed them as well.

And then there was his first Saturday night in Faverolles. Almost all at once at the stroke of nine, the clocks were silenced, leaving the town with nothing but human breath to fill the space. Javert listened to the sound of him inhaling and exhaling in the country evening, astounded at the aural darkness that consumed the pitiful sound. Nice always had crickets in the summer or scalawags sneaking in the nighttime, perhaps a young couple ensconcing to a private place away from their parents, _something_ to fill the air with noise. But it was a void that blanketed him every Saturday night here. It frightened him at first, feeling nothing but his own body and mind as proof that he was a part of the environment. But eventually, he learned to tolerate the dead silence as a real blanket to swaddle him as he drifted into sleep. And now it was a welcome way to let his thoughts dissolve into a void of their own, before waking up the next morning to struggle with yet another of the Lord's teachings that he had to privately parse in his head. Father Clouseau was too careless with his interpretations: some narrow, others broad, some completely ignoring what was written. At least it seemed that way.

Maybe he was just distracting himself due to nerves at the prospect of playing his first game of cards. What were they even going to play? He had no idea; he was probably going to be humiliated. Of all the things for the Inspector to not study for his spying! Glibness, nonplussed responses, 'warmth', crude humor, attire, timing...one would think that the rules of a game or two would come into the mix. But apparently not.

He suddenly remembered that conversation with Anger. What would Adelbert think of him deciding to opt out? It wasn't as if he were bound by a handshake to--

“I should have seen this coming a mile away.”

Javert nearly fell into the bush border from turning around too quickly. He could feel his workman's cap falling off his head, but he only saw the visage of Valjean standing behind one of the few trees that still had its yellow and brown leaves. The would-be gentleman was grinning with a mischief that Javert would sooner not associate with either him or the Thief. But it seemed that he would have to learn to accept it along with everything else. Like how he had to accept that co-worker relationships in a nonpolice environment demanded more participation, if workers like Javert were to maintain a good partnership with their employers and...well, partners.

“Perdon?”, asked Javert politely. It was polite. He made a point of it being polite. It wasn't snippy at all.

Valjean walked over as he explained: “You always struck me as a fellow who never socialized voluntarily. You also struck me as someone who hates breaking rules of any kind. But for some reason, I didn't envision you twiddling your thumbs outside of the card game you agreed to attend. My mistake!”

Now the man was right in front of him, picking up his cap and handing it to him. The moonlight made Sieur Valjean clear enough to see in greater detail: a dark blue coat was covering a standard shirt-cravat-trousers ensemble, but the muted browns and off-whites of the ensemble itself seemed to compliment the coat extremely well. Did Valjean dress himself? Perhaps the man simply got lucky in picking a good coat.

Javert took his cap back before he started tuning out whatever his superior said next.

“Ah, you're eyeing my attire,” said Valjean with 'warmth'. “It is a bit unusual for me, but you see...” Valjean leaned in conspiratorily, but Javert detected that mischief again. He felt oddly embarrassed. Was that the word? “...I'm investigating someone tonight. I thought the blue of a gendarme would suit me well for this.”

...What? Javert put his cap back on without voicing his bewilderment. No...that's wrong. He _should_ have done so.

“That's rather shallow of you, monsieur,” blurted Javert before he could clamp a mouth over his hand—a hand over his mouth! He had no right to speak like that!

Valjean gaped at him, and rightfully so...before bursting out laughing. Javert had the feeling that he had forgotten something.

“I suppose it is! Your wit hasn't withered tonight, dear fellow!”, said Valjean between cackles, clapping Javert on the shoulder. Javert instantly recoiled from the contact: why did people do that? And why did his boss have to do that to him?! But he realized his mistake in the glimmer of confusion and disappointment Valjean showed before laughing some more. “That was refreshing! Javert, a wisecracker!”

... _Wise cracker?_ A wafer of wheat bestowed with wisdom...to be imparted in the way of disrespectful sass? What in heaven or hell was that supposed to mean? Still...he had to make himself clear.

“I would prefer it if people were not to touch me, monsieur. It makes me uncomfortable.” It was the same speech he had to give his commisaire after he woke up from passing out during his...'job interview', so to speak. The man was still oddly fixated on making contact with him, but he had certainly gotten more distant than massaging Javert's temples. Hopefully that was all that happened.

...Come to think of it, Commisaire Leblanc was kind of a creepy fellow. Well-meaning, but still creepy; a tolerable flaw for an utmost professional. Not quite like Valjean. Even with this element of childishness introduced, the gentleman still had an air of respectable authority about him. And thank the Lord for that. Hmm...did the Lord hear every little bit of thanks He was offered? If so, then He was sure to be exasperated at how trifling that one was.

Valjean seemed disappointed...but it was tinged with something else. Javert hated reading faces; the bastards always threw something else in there to throw him off the correct label. Ah, well. If it was important, Valjean would say it plainly. Words were his bread and butter. Nevertheless, the bottom line was so: being touched was a very vague and potentially dangerous form of communication, and he didn't care for it. He was amazed more people didn't realize this. That it was vague and dangerous, that is.

“All people, then? I see. My apologies.”

“Not to worry, monsieur,” accepted Javert with great relief. “You were uninformed.”

Some length of time passed where nothing happened at all. Except that Javert's shoulder burned with where Valjean had clapped it. But the warmth was welcome in the November air. And THAT was shining a little more brightly as well...?

Eventually: “Javert, I've been meaning to ask you something for the longest time.”

Ah, that was it! He _did_ forget something.

“Actually, I feel I should ask you about why you're here first. Investigating someone? Surely the police would be a--”

Valjean waved the matter away. Just like that. Javert was prepared to not ask any further. How did men like him command so eloquently? And why was he usually the only one to notice?

“I doubt Inspector Rayne needs to hear of this. I simply want to see if the woodcutter Bastian is trying to turn this card game into some form of sacriligious council. _That_ , and I haven't had the opportunity to play faro as a legal game yet,” Valjean added with a curious tone.

Sacrilege...a rebellion against God's law. Javert could see that as why Bastian kept pestering him, undoubtedly looking like a pagan in his natural skin. A non-policeman (two, in fact!) would be just as qualified to investigate this as a true policeman. But perhaps a priest would be the best choice. Or a nun. Was this acceptable procedure, especially considering the two investigators had enough strange hallucinations to be certifiably possessed?

“A just cause, then,” supplied Javert, probably needlessly. “I would aid you with my expertise, if you desire, monsieur. I can tell when a conversation leans in a surreptitious direction,” he added with the solid weight of pride in his voice. But Valjean did not seem impressed.

“Bastian is not a clever man. If he is up to no good, then we will know.”

“...Ah.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Valjean continued with unmistakeable annoyance (dammit), “I was meaning to ask you about...well, our origins, so to speak.” Oh, no. “I find it absurd that we cannot speak of them, regardless of our convictions. I ask of you – and it is just asking, nothing more – that we find a way to discuss it peacefully.”

...Valjean was good with words, too. Not great. But good. They rolled off his tongue in a pleasant manner, enunciated clearly, as if with a life of their own. All that needed work was the flow.

But the facts were still the facts.

“I don't see the point in it, monsieur. I am here and now, as are you. Drowning in what happened before or elsewhere would just be distracting.”

“ _But I can't help it,_ ” persisted Valjean with a sudden desperation. “Every night, I dream of something horrid, or something wonderful that is doomed to become horrid. My old life will never leave me be. I don't know what black magic could keep you sane when you hear whispers of the same at any given moment...I'm assuming. But that skill is not available to me. I...”

Javert had to shift his position, shaking the suddenly tense muscles in his neck and arms. Valjean looked very tired. Valjean looked like how the Inspector sounded sometimes. This was awkward.

“...I want your help. I am sick of dealing with these memories alone, Javert. We need not be anything but an ordinary employer and his ordinary employee, if you would prefer that. But if you would...I would so dearly like a friend in this madness. It ages me. And I would like a different perspective on my charts, too.”

Charts?

“I make charts of what I anticipate will happen next, based on the variables I recognize,” answered Valjean without Javert asking. Unless...did he just murmur again?! “I spend hours in the day calculating what could happen if even the slightest error ripples through my business, my family, the outside world...it's maddening. And you have rippled quite unpredictably in those charts, my Javert. It would be tremendous if you would be a source of order for my life than the opposite. And of course...”, Valjean paused with a deliberate, intense gaze that seemed excessive to Javert, “I would be your friend for your troubles, as well. I am not a greedy man, so you know I speak the truth. We could help each other live normal lives, _because_ of our strange inheritance and not in spite of it.”

“...”

He already lived a normal life. He worked so hard to live normally.

“ _Please..._ this would make everything so much simpler. It need not be all at once, either. We can start small.”

“...”

He didn't need to start anything. He was normal; that was what he decided.

“For example,” Valjean continued, regaining some of his former authority. “We agreed not to argue about whether we were reborn or were seeing visions of something else entirely. That is all well and good. But that doesn't mean we can't talk about what we've seen and heard. And smelled. Wait, never mind that last part. Anyway, we can speak of what happened on our own terms and respect the other's views enough not to contradict them. That way, we can assure ourselves that, at the very least, we are not as crazy as the fire-and-brimstone clergy would have us believe.”

“...”

He imagined himself as a child again, feeling the apple farmer's rough hands at his coat, but they were gentle and coaxing this time. They were well-meaning. He felt normal.

“Javert...you know in your heart that this burdens you as well. You and I both fear being dragged to the asylum for even hinting of this to anyone else. But we must speak of it, to someone we can trust, or we will collapse under the weight of it all. Let us protect each other.”

“...................”

He...he couldn't lie to himself forever. He had tried and failed too many times. The Inspector was a ninny, and Javert was a freak.

“...Monsieur...” The imaginary hands released their grip. Why couldn't real touch feel that sanguine? But no one was actually touching him, and he counted that as a good thing.

“Monsieur, you are definitely crazy,” Javert supplied before he could censor himself. It seemed respect was out the window tonight.

Valjean did not laugh, but he did nod.

“Fair point, monsieur. So are you, I imagine. We can both be crazy in peace.”

“I thought you said we were to live normal lives.” It flowed so easily now. Words flowed with Valjean. Employer and employee had no choice but to become something more. But what would that be?

“Well, be reasonable, Javert. We are only two men against the absurdity of the cosmos.”

Javert looked up to it. He didn't want to play cards at all now. Adelbert would understand.

“...I'll think about it.”

“Think about what, Courant?”

Both he and Valjean started. Gerard's voice cut through the air like an axe through butter.

“Ah, how long have you been standing there with...with Monsieur Manager, Javert?”, asked Bastian with a questionable grin. “It's freezing outside!”

Both of them came into view with Adelbert and a few others Javert couldn't name. Gerard had a partially obscured necklace gleaming in the moonlight. A star. A Star of David; well, that wasn't pagan. Adelbert...no, if Adelbert were here, then surely this game wasn't sacriligious. Was it? Was the German actually...?

Adelbert smiled at him. It was such a good smile. Javert felt like falling through a crack in the earth would be easier than going through with this. But it was too late now.

“Would you mind if Monsieur Manager joined us? He's very keen.” Best to not make a fuss, after all.

“Ah...”, muttered Bastian as he glanced at Gerard, who shrugged. “I don't see why not. No, I don't see it.”

Valjean looked like a fugitive forced to trudge back to his cell.


	8. The Pharaoh's Tomb

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Javert got a long-ass prologue, so Valjean gets a long-ass chapter. Fair is fair...I guess? Seriously, I'm sorry this one ended up so long. But I'm pleased with what came out of it.

Bastian had a flair for the dramatic. Theatrically speaking, as in speaking subtle poetry and making a show for all to see. But he was also occasionally dramatic in the common sense, that of taking any particular trouble that happened to _involve_ him and trying to make it _about_ him. It was completely possible that the first way in which Bastian was dramatic was connected to the second way by Bastian's design. Jean Valjean certainly thought so.

Jean knew that tonight would showcase that very quality his brother-in-law had in some way, before the game was done. It was usually hidden with a disgusting coat of glibness, but that churning passion for stealing attention to proclaim the “great misery” he was suffering was, with Jean's appearance now known to the man, destined to be rudely awakened for all to see. Just thinking about it unsettled him a little with how it already infected a drama within himself. But it was earned. He walked into the parlor with the factory workers Courant, Bastian, Gerard, Adelbert, Gorbeau, and Pinet (and the farmers Quaranta and Sion, and Sieur Fougere, the owner of the chateau) and started scouting a chair, at the makeshift faro table, to make into his dread throne. Tonight, Jean Valjean would try to reclaim his sister's husband and finally put everything where it belonged.

Well, most everything. Javert still clung to that baffling doubt. When had the man ever doubted anything?! Apart from...well, he still couldn't claim to know anything about that. All that the suicide proved at face value was that Javert was human, which had to be true anyway. Still, why for this, something so poisonous to both of them?! The answer was _yes_ , Javert. _Yes, I want to share my phantom thoughts with you. I hope we can find a better way to live from it all._ But nothing of his second chance was ever easy, was it? No, the promise of luxury from manipulating time to his favor was a lie he told himself as an ignorant teenager. None of his efforts for salvation were easily made or quickly rewarded. Why would this be any different?

Jean had the niggling feeling that he was forgetting something. Hmm. It would have to wait. Javert was growing a beard, Jean noticed. It suited him.

Jean listened to the other men harrumph as they settled into their seats. He used the cacophony to grunt to himself, and it resounded with the din as if it were nothing but the discomfort of resting his backside in an uncomfortable chair. Which it was; scratchy, only half sanded, and not that well made either. When Jean couldn't profit from clocks anymore, furniture seemed to be a good second venture. That is, if the re-forestation efforts were successful. Poor Faverolles only had so much wood.

Fougere next to him seemed to tolerate the poor chairs within his own home, despite looking just as uncomfortable as everyone else. No doubt the man's careless gambling had its consequences. As far as Jean knew, this version of faro actually had coinless stakes, making it the only game that Fougere played where he didn't have to empty his pockets. It wouldn't have surprised him if this weekly meeting were the only game that Fougere could afford to play at this point, if only to keep this chateau that hid the deposits of gold away from his peers at the cock fighting ring! Or what remained of it, rather.

Fougere never publically acted much like a gentleman, preferring to grunt at anybody who said more than two words at him. But still...the old man had managed to amass enough wealth and prestige among the bourgeoisie to make a quiet home in Faverolles in which to hide from gossip. Fougere was still a gentleman in the end, and Jean would eventually have to prove himself before him, if there were to be any hope of doing so for the uppity folk that were his real jury.

“Just to remind everyone, it's Bastian's turn to be the dealer tonight,” said Gerard, the Star of David gleaming in the candlelight. Jean was surprised that the foreman was displaying his religion tonight. The man was usually shy about his own lifestyle; it took him months in the campaign to overthrow Bain's factory to even learn that Gerard was Jewish. But even for a shy man, this was very bold! Almost frighteningly so...Perhaps this card game was a hideaway in this respect? But wait! A gentleman would never describe it like so; he needed a better noun. Sanctuary.

“Of course Bastian is the dealer,” Sieur Fougere grumbled in Jean's ear. “All this little sanctuary needed was some smarmy homewrecker ruining the conversation. I'm sorry, monsieur.”

Jean gave a facial tick in response, but he was careful not to express any other emotion.

Well, good for them. Gerard would face judgment for not accepting Christ as his savior in due time...but then again, judgment for Jean didn't take the shape one would have thought. What mattered was that Gerard had the chance to find fulfillment on his own, should he seek it. This sanctuary didn't matter to him, unless it was unjustly threatened. What concerned him was the revelation Gerard announced. Faro, as he understood it, was biased toward the dealer. But he brought enough francs to settle any debts he might incur (along with something else). Which he wouldn't, really. Jean did not come here to lose--

It was then that the truth struck him in full force. He had absolutely no idea how to play. Jean privately decided to participate, but he never thought to ask anybody about the rules. He just assumed he'd pick up on them as it happened. So much for considering every minor detail! This was not good.

“Since we have a guest among us tonight that has never played,” started Bastian with a disturbingly eager smile and a flash of cards in his right hand, “I'll go over the rules for him. Briefly,” Bastian added, probably at the prospect of seeing exasperation in his fellow player's eyes. Bastian turned to look at Javert; of course the little worm wasn't referring to Jean, of course not. “I'm going to lay out a full suit of hearts that will be used to place bets.”

“Not spades?”, interjected the farmer Sion. “Why the switch?” Jean could hear in the man's voice the question _What are you plotting?_ It was amazing that these fellows let Bastian play with them, really. How did the fool come to do so in the first place?

Bastian shrugged with, as much as the candlelight told Jean, a crinkling of his eyes. Javert, as much as the candlelight told Jean, looked incredibly confused. With the way Bastian was behaving, he could hardly blame the poor fellow!

...He had a sympathetic thought about Javert. Not one of dismay or pity, but genuine connection. _Casual,_ genuine connection. What was even happening anymore? His charts were going to be a complete mess after tonight.

“No reason, really. Anyway, Monsieur Courant, you and the others will place a sous on the card that you think is going to win, and a copper on--”

“That can't be right,” objected Javert in a stern voice. “Why would everyone pick the same card I do for their own bets? You must be confusing this with some other game. It makes sense for all of the players to spread out their...spread out...”

The force of the silence steadily pressing upon Javert had finally cracked his focus; no other explanation stood available for why he stopped. But why did he even start?, asked Jean to himself. It was clear as day what Bastian actually meant. The dealer didn't even get to finish his sentence! A horrible malaise poured over the group – even the chipper Bastian seemed a little drained – after suffering the awkward handiwork of Sieur Courant. He could hear an unspoken question being asked by the players, or perhaps he was only impressing his own question upon them: how the hell do you respond to that? Since Sion and Quaranta started laughing, Jean assumed that they had found their own answers.

“Never mind,” a stonefaced Javert finally offered. Curiously, he wasn't blushing this time. Actually, that was very curious: Valjean would have desperately tried to find an excuse to leave the table, were it him. “I'll just watch everyone else and figure it out.” Javert eyed the farmers with...gratitude?! It seemed tinged with a grudge, but still! Jean couldn't even begin to make sense of that, at least not under the circumstances. Meanwhile, Adelbert was rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

“Oh, don't punish yourself, dear fellow!”, Bastian said, looking glad to have found a way to guide the conversation again. “There's no need to have confused players; it ruins the point of having an even playing field. I meant that--”

“Everyone places bets on the card that he, individually, believes will win...the round,” interrupted Javert. Why was that so difficult for him to perceive before? Jean would have a time and a half figuring that one out, if he even had time. “The next round will be...more of the same, I'm guessing?”

...Maybe Javert and the Inspector really _were_ two different people. He didn't like that idea, mostly for what it implied for himself, but it was becoming difficult to ignore. Looking at Courant, and remembering the Inspector...either Jean Valjean had never tried to understand the man who pursued him, or the two were more like brothers than the same soul. But Jean felt almost exactly the same as his former self.

Almost.

Hmm. Perhaps that would be the first conversation he'd have with Javert, once he finally convinced him to talk about all this.

“Indeed!”, answered Bastian, sounding far too accepting of the surreally unfocused mentality that was just displayed. “See, this isn't so hard.” Javert glowered. That was a reaction Jean did understand, making yet another commonality they had. “Now, if you want to make a bet for which card will not win, you place a copper on that card. If you guess right on either or both, you win points from the dealer, me. Don't mind the points until we're done playing; it's a little complicated. Because only one card wins and only one other card loses,” emphasized Bastian questionably, “you only need one sous and one copper to play the game. This is especially true here, since we're not playing for money.”

Oh. Whoops.

The farmers and Sieur Fougere grunted at the same statement. Javert seemed pensive.

It was an interesting scene overall: to make a game of _this_ nature for a town that seemed self-satisfied suggested that...perhaps it wasn't. Perhaps the farmers were actually eager to try and get money from this group to advance themselves. As for Fougere, well, that was an understandable instance of bitterness. Gerard adjusted his shirt to let the Star of David show even more. Perhaps the stakeless game was a real and true sanctuary, a place for the downtrodden to express themselves with pride (or maybe the man was just displaying his chest hair). Javert...Jean supposed that the 'coinless' aspect was a necessary stipulation to make the awkward man come to the game. But that raised a very interesting question: why did Javert come at all? Was it possible for Javert to actually get lonely?

The thought of it flooded his belly with a gentle warmth. Javert, lonely...that was an alien concept to him. The Inspector didn't so much as venture beyond his job during that lifetime, and he seemed fine with that. But this new concept quickly nestled into his mind, altering the mental portrait he had of the man, as if adding a splash of green to the dreary, grey canvas. Javert being lonely was also easily fixed. Hell, maybe Javert wouldn't have such catastrophic inferential failures if he had someone to talk to, someone to release the undoubtedly toxic stress he was keeping at bay. Jean could certainly relate to that.

“Yes, yes, we're all cheapskates here,” Bastian shrugged off. “Anyway, for the way the cards win and lose. I will draw two cards per round, Courant. The first card I draw,” Bastian pulled a card from his own stack, the One of Diamonds, “will be the losing card. The second card I draw,” The second card he pulled was the Two of Hearts, “will be the winning card. With twenty six pairs, that makes twenty six--”

“Oh, _get on with it!_ ”, yelled Sion. “My ass is getting splinters over here! I want to win my points so this one,” he said, pointing to Quaranta, “will finally get off his splintered ass and fix the fence he ruined!”

“That fence was going to fall on its own, and you know it!”, rebutted Quaranta. “It's not my fault that your son can't use a hammer worth sh--”

“Gentlemen, please,” said Bastian with glib cheerfulness, but he had that familiar glare of possibly violent implications.“We have guests. If you want your fence fixed, Sion, then you will need to be patient. Tutorial or not.”

All the hot air rushed out of Sion; it might as well have whistled for how quickly the farmer's belligerence deflated. Jean knew that this was a smart move. That glare was the precursor to either a hellish brawl or, if it were like four years ago when Jean restrained him, a powerfully annoying rant about how unfair everyone was being (to him). Then again, thought Jean suddenly, he's not with family this time. Excepting me, but he always does that. Maybe this would be different, if it did get out of control. The more he learned about the secrets of Faverolles, the more he wanted to reclaim his powerlifter bulk of Toulon. He wouldn't even mind the enlarged waist from the weight gain, forcing him to buy new clothes, at this point.

...Maybe it was okay if he were not reborn at all, but his own person, like Javert insisted. He could still take control of his life. It didn't make any sense still, but it wasn't an uncomfortable notion. Not anymore.

But then, if he wasn't then unfairly burdened and maligned beggar who gave alms...then who was he? No, it made no sense. He was given a second chance, and he was in the middle of seizing it.

“They went in order.”

Jean turned to face Javert along with the others, already reeling from yet another bizarre ejaculation from the Gypsy man. Jean almost had to laugh: the farmers laughing made sense now! Yes, because all the tension was instantaneously dispelled by the completely random remark. But that didn't make it any less awkward.

“What do you mean?”, asked Gerard.

“The cards that Bastian drew.” Suddenly, Bastian collected the cards, put them back into the deck, and shuffled the deck. “They went 'one', and then 'two'. Cardinal order, I think they call it. That was weird.”

“Not as weird as monsieur,” jibbed Gorbeau.

The party erupted into a laughing fit. It wasn't all that funny, but it seemed Jean was right about the numbing anxiety Javert's awkwardness created. They were eager to cut through it.

Javert wore a poker face.

\-------------------------------

The game was going very quickly. Soon, there were only four rounds left to play, and the parlor was thoroughly misted from cigar smoke. Jean was pleased at how well he was doing: according to the system Bastian and Gerard had created, he had accumulated ten points, three more than the second most point holder (with seven points), Sieur Fougere. Javert was doing horribly with only two points. Part of it was just bad luck, but the fellow refused to bet against any cards. Jean couldn't say why, but instead just chalked it up to yet more evidence of Courant's bizarre character. If the Inspector were this weird, then it was only behind closed doors.

Jean noticed that, whenever Adelbert placed any bets, Javert paid special attention to it. Adelbert wasn't doing well, though. If anything, the German's score was forgettable. It was a complete mystery until Adelbert smiled after winning a point in the eighteenth round. Courant looked to him and seemed to flush. Flush? Javert wasn't...was he? It was too weird to say.

"A rare victory for Adelbert. Perhaps the Teutons will actually be proud of their fugitive from this game, if you keep it up," quipped Gorbeau in poor taste.

Adelbert glared daggers. Jean felt a sudden pang of empathy, but then the German smirked and bet against the card Gorbeau was betting to win.

If it were anyone else, Jean would say Javert's reaction was a classic example of a crush, albeit of the opposite persuasion. But this was Javert, and a surreal iteration of him at that. He had all the affection of a sledgehammer. Or did the new strangeness allow him to feel the flutters of love? In his own former life, Jean Valjean never spared a notable thought for lust or love, so much as his dreams told him. Cosette was his life, and that was all he could hope to maintain. He never had a crush, certainly. If he were to assume that he merely dreamed of a different Valjean, then he might have thought that the man cared for neither men nor women. That was not the case...so it only stood to reason that he merely repressed his lust for men. Dark-skinned, severe, bizarre, voice-hearing, swarthy men, apparently.

"Gerard, answer me this...if Christ were nothing but a prophet, then why did he rise from the grave?", asked Quaranta.

"...Perhaps he smelled your feet and needed some fresh air," answered Gerard. Javert quirked his eyebrows. They were very bushy, Jean realized, before turning back to his musings.

A sad thought entered his ruminations as he placed his bets for the twenty-third round. Maybe the 'voices' invading Courant's mind had shattered it and left him dysfunctional. Oh no, that was it, wasn't it?! Dear Lord, have mercy on that poor soul. As if it wasn't bad enough that most people who heard voices were shackled in sanitoriums. Didn't Courant mention one of his arrests ending up in an asylum? Yes, a sex criminal. That sort of crime must be split between the two hellmouths - prison and asylum - for how its enactors met their fates. What made the difference, then? Then again, why wasn't he simply beheaded? Perhaps they thought he would entertain the wealthy with his antics.

Bastian won against Javert, Adelbert, Sion, Fougere, and Gerard. He lost against Valjean, Gorbeau, and Quaranta. The others were mostly banking on Five to be the winner, for some reason. Apart from Javert, who always picked randomly.

"Not much of a strategist, our Courant, is he?", said Gerard. "Just letting the bets fall where they may."

"There is no strategy to gambling. It's luck." Javert did not sound amused. Then again, when did he ever?

"Bad luck, in your case!", responded Sion with a chuckle. "But you know, that's not true at all. You can--"

"Just don't."

Sion bristled at the rebuke, but then he seemed to drop it just as quickly as he cut in with an exasperated shrug. Jean's thoughts continued.

Asylum was the default response to queerness, just as prison was the default response to crime. From what he knew, both of them were horribly cruel, but the asylum was admittedly more complicated by grace of the minds it housed (both the keepers and the 'patients'). Jean was saved from the trap of slaving in the galleys, only to be dangerously close to this other trap, this avenue of consequence that he had never considered in his first life for all the chaos enveloping him. From one to another.

Javert was even closer to it than he was...the irony was not pleasant, it was just...the whole thing made him nervous. Of all the things Javert would have been better if he suffered in the first life, being displayed as a mentally broken freak was not one of them. Jean had to protect him. Protect Javert... _that_ was a pleasant irony. He was not an evil man in either life (or whatever), and he was easy on the eyes to boot. It eased the burn of never finding love in his first life.

Now that he thought about it, the lack of love in his life felt as one more point of contention for how unjustly wronged he was. No time for simple joys, only hiding and redemption, all because of a law system that would rather destroy a sinner than let him repent. But musing on that litany of injustices did nothing to soothe the wounds it inflicted. It just depressed him. Still, if someone like Javert could find it in him to admire...

Wait. Javert had a crush, didn't he? Javert had a crush. Holy shit. Javert was capable of crushing on someone, and a man no less! Insanity notwithstanding, that meant...that meant that Jean had a chance. But this ugly Adelbert fellow had to—Jean nearly slapped himself for having such an evil thought. He placed his bets, still letting bits and pieces of the conversations poke his bubble of introspection, just enough to keep him on his game.

“Courant, you seem intent on old Adelbert. Has he offended you?”

He was supposed to be a gentleman. A true Sieur, not just an informal address out of politeness.

“Oh, leave him be, Bastian," said Fougere. "He's losing, and we've seen how he is when he's just learning how to play the game. If he wants to distract himself, I say let him."

“Wait, how could Adelbert offend anybody?", asked Gerard. "He has the vocabulary of a bag of flour."

But he would never be able to do so. Even with all his wealth in his first life, the bourgeoisie saw him as a peasant first and foremost. He was a business partner, a useful name to mention for sales and conversation starters, but not a part of their stratum. His large physique was often admired by them, but not respected.

“You know, you should talk, Gerard," started Fougere. "The only mention I've heard of your life is when it's forced out of you. Otherwise, your role could be filled by a Star of David glued to a brick.”

“HAHAHAHA! Oh dear, that image, hehehe!" Gorbeau was intensely amused. "A Star of David glued to a brick, barking orders for maintenance in the factory! Wouldn't that be the day!”

“My personal life is none of your business. I simply want to be free to display what I am...and maybe cut a few of you down to size.”

He needed to try, to make a show of the upper crust appearance. He did. He really did. But he sure as hell didn't want to. He just wanted to collect his profits and find a way to life some semblance of a simple life. Maybe with Javert, if he could fix the broken man. A life with Javert...what would they be together? Business associates? A factory owner and his spy, seeking out problems within the factory, or factories? Just two lost souls finding...comfort...in each other?

“Well, why is that, then? If you don't want your personal life discussed, then why wear a sign of it?” Sion was getting saucy.

“So that people won't ask questions,” inserted Javert. Ever the investigator. “People see your emblem and keep you at arm's length, especially important in a chatty place like this.”

An uncertain pause filled the space.

“Well, Gerard? Is that accurate?”, asked Fougere.

“...Doesn't always work, clearly.”

“Ah! That was a nice one, Courant," commented Sion. "Hey, he's got some brains after all!” Javert didn't seem to be paying attention anymore. He just started looking around the room again, like he kept doing after making his bets. They were starting to grow on him, actually, these weird quirks born from supernatural trauma. They were harmless. They were like a child who was seeing everything for the first time...except it was a grown man, seeing everything again for the second time. 

Jean's head hurt.

“But does he have enough brains for comfort? _That's_ the question.” Quaranta was not looking at Javert when he said this.

...Hmm. Comfort. Valjean could not succeed as anything but a tool that the rich would try to use. Comfort didn't necessarily come in conflict with that. And it was a good cause to try and heal a broken mind. He'd be the best bet for that. Hell, the best match!

“I'm betting you used to be with the police, Courant?”, asked Gerard.

“He was,” said Fougere. “I'd know that candor anywhere.”

Javert coughed up a fit. Jean suspected it was merely the smoke, but:

“Eh, you're going to be just as tight-lipped as Gerard, aren't you?", accused Sion. "Hah! You bust his lid open, and you shut yours tight!”

“Hypocrit!”, Quaranta threw out glibly. Javert did not respond to that, not even nonverbally.

“I guess that's discreet types for you," murmured Fougere.

Discreet. Javert was discreet. Jean knew that he himself was discreet as well. It could work.

“Leave him alone. All of you.”

Bastian's tone broke his reverie instantly. It was the same heartless bite that preluded the end of Jeanne's husband faithfully playing his role. It was just as well that the last round had ended. He had the most points of all the players against Bastian, and that was exactly what he wanted. But...

“I'm glad that got your attention. We need to assign favors according to the points now, and I will have no more of this molestation toward Courant. He's new to all of this, not to mention it's just _rude._ ”

“Oh, _come off it,_ Bastian! This is how we are. If you didn't want him hearing this, then you shouldn't have invited him here. He doesn't mind, he's too distracted to pay attention anyway.”

Bastian did keep paying attention to Javert. Inordinantly so. But why? He ignored it until now, because he trusted that, if anything untoward were to happen, Courant could take care of himself. Javert could...yes, he could. He could, he had before! Well...the point was, Javert had never and would never let someone do anything he didn't want to do. Unless that person held authority over him...

“I said to stop it. _So you will stop it._ I do not jest, messieurs.” Jean loosened his shoulders, and so did the farmers.

_Note to self: never promote Bastian._ Not that he planned to, but he had solid reason not to now. If those skeezy glances he kept giving the man were from a superior...wait. Skeezy glances from a superior to an off-beat hermit who had no friends to speak of...who was good-looking, at least for Jean's tastes...

Oh, dear. Oh, dear, oh, goodness, oh, sacred blue skies. So that was what Bastian meant by 'finding a pet to keep him company.' He at least assumed it would be a woman, but now he saw how that was a poor assumption.

That would not do at all. Not for a second. That had to _stop._ And he knew exactly how. The bottle in his pocket shifted against his thigh.

“I've decided what to use my points for!”, announced Valjean.

“Yes, yes, fantastic,” said Bastian with a hand wave. “Did you all hear me, then? Monsieur Manager especially, since you keep staring at him for some weird reason. Stop bothering our guest.”

“I heard you.” Never mind the fact that Jean was a guest as well. “Now _you_ hear _me_ , Bastian. My decision involves you.”

_That_ got his undivided attention. Now the glare he was giving the room was reserved solely for him. As long as the slimeball understood what was going to happen, that was enough.

“Oh, does it? I haven't informed you of how the system works yet. One noteworthy part of it is that the points can be adversarial. If I have ten, and you have ten, and we pit them against each other...then we even out to zero. Now...” Bastian growled darkly, “if I understand what you want me to do correctly...”

“You know _exactly_ what I want you to do,” growled Jean.

“Indeed. You have fourteen, and with all the points I've accumulated, divided by the number of people playing, I have...” Bastian paused to perform the calculation, ignoring the growing tension in the room. Javert was staring at the floor, only occasionally pulling his head up to look at Valjean or Adelbert. But not Bastian. “Sixteen. I pit all my points against yours, Monsieur Manager. Now I still have two to work with, to pit against you.”

“Monsieur Valjean...”, interceded Sieur Fougere, “is this about what I think it is about?”

“The very same,” affirmed Jean.

“Then I pit my points against the dealer for Monsieur Valjean's favor. That makes for eight points toward that favor.”

“Wait, what?!”, said Gorbeau.

“It's allowable,” said Fougere. “We could pool points together, I say. If I could demand a favor from Valjean for all my points, then why could I not pool them to ensure that his favor would be fulfilled?”

Faintly, Jean heard Javert mumble: “I should never have come here.” But then the man looked at Adelbert again, while rubbing his arms for some reason. That was really starting to annoy him. Was it the blond hair? It was the blond hair, wasn't it? Jean had money, though. Javert would see sense soon enough.

“That's not going to work,” rebutted Bastian. “You won't drag me back to those schmucks with _points_ , anyway. I was just explaining the system to Courant.”

“Well, you did a shitty job of it,” retorted Courant. “I still have no idea what anyone's saying about it.”

Jean wanted to clap him on the back. But the man said he didn't like being touched, agh, that would not do. Perhaps he simply needed to bond with someone trustworthy, someone who would only touch him as allowed. Yes, that sounded right. Bastian seemed disheveled.

“Monsieur Manager, please explain what's happening here,” asked Javert. “Am I to assume that this somehow involves me, beyond all reasoning?”

Jean had to stifle a laugh. The man had no clue, did he? Not about the family or the looks he was getting. Javert just kept wandering his gaze all over the parlor and getting flustered at Adelbert's smiles...Jean didn't see what the appeal was, really. It only showed off the man's eyes. Jean had eyes; nice brown ones. What was so different between them? EUGH! This was going to make him lose the argument if he kept getting ahead of himself. So what if Javert didn't like him yet? He could change that in due time!

Still, Javert wasn't being pulled in by the trap, and that made things easier.

“Javert, it has nothing to do with you,” assured Jean. “I need to drag my brother-in-law back to his family and give my niblings their father back. It shouldn't take too long.”

Bastian looked ready to burst a blood vessel. That shade of red on his face was one that Jean hadn't seen since that same fight that split the family.

“You always do this,” spat Bastian. “When you're the king of the hill, you aloofly pull all the strings along, but as soon as something snags, you flail like a wild lion cub in a hunter's net.”

“Speak of yourself in earnest, dear brother, and not through me.”

“I JUST WANT A SIMPLE LIFE,” cried the pitiful man. “I WANT TO PLAY CARDS WITH MY FRIENDS. I...I want to get to know Courant better.” Javert went bug-eyed. “Simple things. Why is that so damn offensive to you?! Your sister is taken care of now, so just leave me alone! I have my life, and she has hers. You're nothing but an instigator without an agenda, and I'm just another unlucky victim.”

“...I pit my points against the dealer,” said Gorbeau.

“And me,” said Quaranta.

“Me as well,” said Sion.

“Same here,” said Gerard.

Adelbert simply pointed at Bastian. Had the man just taken a vow of silence?

Javert simply sat in his chair, looking lost for words.

“...Well, at least one of you isn't heartless,” said Bastian. “Will you speak for reason, Javert?”

“...”

The room fell silent.

“...”

Seconds dripped and dropped by, building a puddle of wasted time that threatened to drown the urgency of the situation. It almost seemed like Javert was going to wait it all out until everyone just left him alone.

But then:

“I forfeit my points to Monsieur Manager.”

Bastian balked at his 'pet': “...Javert, I can't--”

“I don't care if that's not allowed. I want no part of this. I left...this sort of thing behind me when I came here, and I should have kept it that way. It was a mistake to come here tonight.”

Javert...

“Monsieur Valjean may do what he likes with my points. Perhaps he can consider it as payment for that baguette. After all, I suspect that Bastian will be coerced no matter how the points are alotted.”

Baguette? Why did he...oh! He remembered that?! All this time, he was harboring some debt?! No, he was Inspector Javert, without a doubt.

“...Yes. Yes, Javert hit the nail on the head. You all conspired to bring me back to those boring dolts, didn't you? Can't a man have some peace for once? Seven children! It was going to destroy me!”

“You always seemed to misunderstand this one basic thing, Bastian, about children,” answered Valjean. “Even if you create them, they never belong to you. You belong to them. You are responsible for their care, and I will no longer tolerate you neglecting that responsibility.”

“Ha! By your logic, I am a terrible father! Why would you want me back?!”

“I am not asking you to love them, or even my sister. It is painfully clear that you don't, although why that is will always be beyond me. I am demanding that you support them with your earnings and presence, regardless of my success. I wasn't available as an excuse when you left, and I am not an excuse for you now. Just the same, I will stop finding excuses not to do what I am about to do. I will bodily drag you to your proper home if I must, Bastian. Let's go.”

Jean could not adequately describe the gentle sensation in his chest and head, except what it had to mean: power. It was the opposite of the turmoil for deciding to reveal himself at Arras, and the contrast was not lost on him. He would do it, after all this time; he would reclaim the life that was lost, instead of forfeiting it. Dragging Bastian wasn't difficult; the man was fairly short and not very strong, nor was he a good fighter. Jeanne would have her husband back within fifteen minutes, at the latest.

"You will do no such thing."

"Then you will come quietly."

Bastian jumped on to the table and lunged straight at him. Jean could do nothing but watch...himself raise his fist and throw himself forward to collide with his brother-in-law's face. It wasn't enough to knock him out, but it did make Bastian crumple onto the card table, crushing the cards beneath him as his torso dangled over the side. Jean pulled him off the table, toward himself, and let gravity add another blow as the fool fell to the floor. He then preemptively sat on the flailing Bastian and asked Sion, with his remarkable bulk, to pin Bastian's limbs. Sion complied.

"I figured I would have to use this."

Jean pulled out the chloroform (while pulling his head away) and a white handkerchief, splashed a bit on the corner, and forced Bastian to inhale the fumes. He was careful to keep the bottle away from Sion, no matter how much the farmer panicked at the sight. Within seconds, Bastian was thankfully unconscious and ready to bodily drag home.

The rest of the party had stirred and gawked at the scene, all of them jolted from their seats except for Javert, who was rooted to the spot. He expected some kind of conflict, just nothing so blatant. No matter. If his children were still awake, then they would see the bruises and just what kind of a person their father was. 

"Chloroform?! Monsieur Manager really doesn't take risks, does he?!", exclaimed Gorbeau.

"O-Of course not, you silly fool. It wasn't just luck that got him the factory from that demon, you know," retorted Gerard.

"Oh, believe me, most of it was luck...", answered Jean half-heartedly.

But the sickening thing about the whole mess resurfaced from the depths of his conscious yet again, tormenting him with the unforseen tragedy: they would want him back no matter what. That was the reason he was took up this dread errand, or anything related to it, letting him work in the factory to earn money especially. If not for Alexandre and his siblings, he would have dumped the fool in the hands of the church and cut all ties with him (as opposed to dumping him with the church and praying for his salvation). Men like him would never change, because they would never want to change. But this one was going to do as he was told.

The game was over. The points were wordlessly discarded, out of deference to the situation. The men started filing out, most of them choosing not to comment on what happened. Only two conversations were held. The first:

"Well, there goes our leader," said Gerard.

Jean had to suppress a fit. Meanwhile, Javert had still to get up, while Adelbert also stayed behind to clean the table.

"Just what do you mean by that? _Are you seriously telling me--_ "

"Oh, he had to go, no doubt about that. But we wouldn't have been doing this if it weren't for him. It was his idea."

"...Okay. So? Wasn't it yours, too?"

"What do you mean, so? _Do you know how much time it took him to convince me to wear this?!_ " Gerard brandished the Star of David as best he could with it still hanging around his neck. "This was a safe place, by his design. We say and do what we like, and no one gives a shit. I suppose it still will be that way, but...if it weren't for him, then all I would have in this town would be...er, less than this."

Jean had no response as Gerard gathered his things. So it really was true. When he wasn't tuning the conversations out, he heard them ribbing each other in a way that the factory would never have allowed (though not by Jean's restrictions, necessarily). He thought, at least in part, that it could be just a bunch of (mostly) married men disregarding a few social mores here and there for a game, which was fairly common. But it was more than that, _on purpose._ It was a hideaway from the world of France. A place for the mutilated spirits of Faverolles to find peace.

"It really is best if he doesn't come back here," offered Jean. "I don't know how else to handle this."

"...Agreed. Still...I feel that I owe him something. Maybe I'll finally do good on the points he pitted against me last month. I'll take him to your abode," the foreman suddenly volunteered, reaching for the lifeless body of his friend.

Gerard stepped to the door, Bastian slung over his shoulder, and said as a closer: "Oh, and you and Monsieur Courant are welcome here anytime, Monsieur Manager. Consider yourselves formally invited. Just...no chloroform next time." Jean felt blood rush to his face.

Gerard left. This left Jean with nothing to do, save for securing Bastian in the home. He would be walking alone...

Adelbert finished cleaning the table and was about to leave himself, obviously without a word. But then the second conversation took place:

"Adelbert," said Javert. "If you would."

Adelbert turned around to face Javert. The displeased expression that the former was wearing melted into a friendly one. He raised his eyebrows to acknowledge the coming inquiry. Javert looked to the floor at making eye contact, however.

"There's something I always wanted to ask you."

Jean's pulse quickened. If this turned out the way he feared...but Adelbert was a complete stranger! He never talked! He smiled sometimes, but plenty of people do that! Why this man, of all the men to pick?! This was going to drive him crazy, he just knew it. But maybe he would glean a little insight, if nothing else, from what was to come next.

_Say no. Say no. Give me a reprieve from this madness and let me have some comfort. Stay away from him and just say no_.

"...Am I weird?"

...Huh? Jean's pulse slowed to normal. That came out of nowhere. But at least it wasn't the other question.

Adelbert was visibly puzzled. Understandably; it wasn't the sort of thing a typical person asked. It wasn't the man's fault that he was weird. Unbelievable consequences had confounded his brain! Jean was sure that he was just as weird, albeit in a different way that hadn't come to light. Adelbert was just going to shrug it off and go about his--

"Ja."

It...that...that just happened. Adelbert spoke. It was like seeing a dormant volcano erupt after years of staring at the crater. But what the man ended up saying...

...Oh, Javert...he was trying to be subtle, wasn't he?

Courant visibly sagged. Gooseflesh erupted along Jean's torso at the sight to decorate his desire to embrace the man. The real question that was asked was clear now, and the answer was, ironically, _nein._ Javert was jilted. Jean thought of the jealously that flared within him before, and shame took its place. Never mind the absurdity of Javert seeking courtship at all. Who was he to decide what the affections of a fellow should be?

Jean had to take responsibility for his companion in the cosmic insanity. Any courtship, no matter how ill-advised, would wait until a better time.

"May I walk home with you, Javert? It's cold tonight, and...well, I'd like someone by my side after all of this. I am sure you would as well."

Javert slowly pulled his head up to face Jean, looking stonefaced again. It hurt to see him hiding the disappointment. If nothing else, he was adamant on becoming a source of comfort for his...friend. Yes. That was what they were. Or they would be.

"If that is what you wish, Monsieur le Maire."

...What?!

"P-Pardon, Javert?!"

Javert looked ready to fall into the cracks of the earth.

"M-Monsieur Manager, I meant to say, pardon. We may walk together, yes...Pardon."

Oh, dearest angels on high. They should have started this much sooner.


	9. Thrive or Be Silent

Javert Courant kept his eyes skyward as he began to catalogue the events of the past fifteen minutes or so. In such a short time, an entire paradigm had shifted. Bastian was a scoundrel, which came as no surprise to him. Bastian wanted Javert to be a part of it, which was close to unthinkable. Why would anyone want to 'get to know him better'? He stayed quiet all the time and never paid attention to anyone. Surely the man was planning something sinister, and all would be well now that Bastian was restrained in the name of holy order. Chloroform was a bit too far, but it was in self-defense and minimized any battery. Both the law and the Lord had been obeyed.

The snow was wet and sloshed as the two of them walked.

But that was beyond him, part of a world that foresaw the event and put it to rest. His responsibility was in examining the smaller details. The atmosphere in that parlor was rich with inconsequential dialogue. That was a strange concept to him. Words usually led to action anywhere else, but even the religious turn the banter took led to nothing. Anything went in that game. Perhaps, if the tension cleared from this incident, he might consider going again.

_Adelbert would not go again. He would be uncomfortable, and so I could come. Right? Everyone was after that incident, and Adelbert is just not the type to return after that. Yes, it works out._

More significantly, Adelbert had confirmed what he suspected all along: even the most distant from society recognized how odd he was. Depressing though it was, it told him how he should conduct himself, or rather how he should not do so. In order to maintain an attractive position within the factory, he had to make more of an effort to appear normal. He did not have looks or appropriate wit on his side, he knew that meant a more conceited effort to socialize.

Speaking of which:

"Monsieur Manager, my home is far apart from yours. Perhaps we should part ways after all." Wait. No, that was wrong. Dammit, why was that his default demeanor when he needed the opposite?

Valjean looked perturbed. But they still sloshed through the snow.

"There is no rush, surely. Gerard knows how to secure Bastian in my home, and the man won't be awake for a few hours. My sister and her children are asleep. You are not looking after anyone. Why don't we just talk for a while?"

Hmm. A stroke of luck: despite failing in an attractive presentation, he could create a substantive one instead. Valjean was gracious, as always.

"That was a well-formed argument. Either you are even wittier than I imagined, or you really wish to say something to me." Javert realized that his tone of voice made him sound suspicious, perhaps even on a regular basis. He needed to be more flexible.

"Hah! Could it not be both?"

"...Perhaps." Could it be? He supposed. In any case, it was imaginable.

"You are correct: I wish to speak with you dearly. About what we discussed before the faro game. Have you come to a decision?"

Ah. He had spent most of the game thinking about that. Adelbert's smiles interrupted his thoughts...ugh...why did he attach himself to smiles, of all things? Warm or cold, sudden or prolonged, smiles meant very little. Was he that stupid after all?

"...Javert?"

"Oh, ah, yes I have." He did? Slosh.

"I am anxious to hear it. You can imagine, I'm sure." Valjean's tone sounded gentle until now, when it turned urgent. Why was he speaking so gently before? The entire situation was urgent, if what the man said was true.

...Crap. He had to decide _now_. No more pondering over consequences or implications or sheer discomfort. He had made a promise....but what was he to say?! It was one or the other! Black or white! Man or nature! This was completely unteneable, and Valjean was getting exasperated!

Slosh, slosh.

"I will discuss it with you." Javert felt his stomach turn into lead. So this was what his heart had chosen. Perhaps he really was stupid. Or perhaps he was smart. Only time would tell. His mind was uncomfortably blank as he stepped into this newfound territory without preamble. And it went without saying that Valjean was obviously pleased.

"I am relieved beyond words, my friend! You shall not regret this, I promise you."  
Promises. Whenever someone that wasn't him made promises, it was always subject to query. But this was Valjean. Valjean would be honorable, as well as could be done.

"...What do you want to talk about, specifically?"

"Hmm. If it were the daytime, I would show you my causality charts. But for now, I just want to say that anything you were to ask of me, I would answer. And I would expect the same of you. Within reason, obviously."

"O-Obviously." There was absolutely nothing obvious about that. If Valjean hadn't said that, then Javert was going to have a stroke.

"Excellent." Valjean smiled. Adelbert's smiles seemed ugly now, in hindsight. "Now, in the spirit of asking questions," Oh no, already? Valjean seemed desperate for what was coming next as well. "I am desperate to know the answer to this. What compelled Inspector Javert to take his own life?"

And of course, the man asked the impossible question.

"I have no idea. And trust me, the answer would not be worthwhile anyway."

Valjean underwent a funny reaction at that moment. He simultaneously wilted and made a face of profound...something. The man was not happy, and that was all Javert needed to know.

They stopped sloshing.

"If you are telling the truth, then this ordeal of hearing the past must have ruined you more than I feared." What?! "If you are lying, then I may very well strangle you. Please...tell me more, tell me why that is."

Javert sloshed in a circle.

What do you care?! That was his life, not mine or yours!

"Look at me when you speak to me. And that is hardly the point."

Perhaps it was his lot to talk to himself. Perhaps he would merely have to live with it.

"That man haunted my dreams, and still does every now and then. He was insufferably arrogant, but he was horribly alone. Was that it? Did his lifestyle destroy him? Did the sewers of Paris poison him, and he merely let it take him to the grave? Or..."

The night was deadly silent. Breath sounded rattling and phantasmagorical, as if a hellbeast were panting next to them. They were standing in front of the factory.

"...Was it something I did? Or some other Valjean, whatever, was it like that?!"

 _How could he exist? To be of justice and yet...What manner of demon could become a saint?_ Wait, that part was new. It meant the same as the others, but it was new!

"I told you. I. Have. _No._ Idea." What else was he to do?! "I hear the last words of that fool, and I feel nothing at all. It's like listening to a man read a book with half the lines crossed out. It's all...disorganized and meaningless AND I HATE LISTENING TO IT. It drives me crazy, like it's trying to prove something to me, when there is nothing to prove! Maybe he blamed the thief Valjean, maybe he was lonely, maybe he was conflicted over God's law, maybe maybe _always fucking maybe_. I tire of it. I would rather never listen to it again."

Javert stopped to breathe. The hellbeast left to pad into the factory and sit next to the dormant furnace.

_I hate listening to it? I guess I do. I must. But I hate it, truly hate it?_

"I am truly sorry."

Javert looked to Sieur Manager. If it were anybody else, he would merely infer from the words that they were indeed sorry. But Valjean looked the part perfectly. Left hand upon right arm, drooping expression, sad eyes...brown eyes, shining their sadness straight to him. Javert felt very uncomfortable looking at them.

"I suppose...", continued Valjean, "I suppose it's because I never thought of doing anything like that, not seriously. I could never imagine what it must have been like. Maybe you don't feel that way, so it would not make sense to you either."

...Maybe. Maybe?

"It may sound odd, but I find it comforting that you don't understand it as well. Let me ask something else, then." Sweet Lord, yes, something else. "You mentioned being conflicted over God's law." Valjean looked very odd now, like a mix between happy and constipated. He was sure that was not the case at all, but it looked that way. "What conflict did the Inspector have?"

That was an easy answer, as long as Javert did not have to resolve it.

"The Inspector followed the law of France as gospel for his entire career. He believed that justice was delivered by the legislators that penned the code he enforced. He never doubted it...or if he did, then I never heard of it. Who's to say?" Once again, Valjean was weirdly enraptured. "Anyway, his last encounter with the thief left him with a conundrum that he avoided all the while. Was he supposed to obey the Lord over the law, if ever the two came into conflict? Then--"

"Yes."

"...I was not finished." Javert could not quite articulate how he felt from that interruption. He decided not to bother and instead let the emotional trauma run through him, unaddressed and neglected.

"I beg your pardon. But that is the answer, you understand."

"... _As I was trying to say_ ," Valjean flinched. "Then the Inspector could not find an answer to the conundrum that satisfied him. It's possible that this drove him to fall into the river, but maybe something else confounded it. I will never know."

"...I see."

"And what do you mean, that's the answer?!", objected Javert. "You should realize that a greater ambition is needed: obey both at the same time. Only then can true justice be done."

"...I see."

"I am glad--"

"I must cut you off again, Javert. I need to say something."

Javert had to remind himself that his employer was speaking to him, else he would have thrown a fit.

"This explains the man before me. I wondered why you behaved and spoke as you do, and living under such an impossible anthem would easily be the root cause."

Javert's blood ran cold.

"Behaved and spoke like what?"

Valjean sighed. Javert did not like the sound of it at all.

"You are the most singular man I have ever met. I mean no disrespect, but it's clear as day to me."  
Javert had already forgotten the rest of what Valjean had said before.

"...I see."

"I swear that I meant that as pure fact and not as an insult."

Javert nodded.

"Good...now please let me say this. I tried to convince Inspector Javert of this and failed. But I dearly wish to do it right this time, that you be different from him in this regard. God's law is superior to the law of man. Legislators may try to enact His will, but it would only be a poor imitation _at best_. With the way most countries are now, if not all, and France being no exception, the laws at work are nowhere near what they need to be to guide His people to grace. Prisons are abominable. Asylums are just as bad, if not worse. Fallen women can never return from their filthy hovel of selling their bodies. The police act however they please, and only people like Javert could maintain any order in a place governed by laws of that nature. Only lovers of the Lord could mend this and achieve something more, something greater and worthwhile for _everyone_. And that is why God's law, by definition, must supercede and defeat the law of man, if any true justice is to reign."

It was a reheased argument. Jean Valjean had taken the time to think through this and say it to Javert in this manner. Every point flowed to the conclusion by design. As for what it all meant...he heard the Inspector sputtering to Madeleine about Fantine, as if trying to drown out his own thoughts. Typical.

"If that is what you believe, then I have a lot to ponder in the coming days."

Valjean smiled, but he did not look happy as Javert had come to know it. It seemed...tired? Valjean was tired! Well, no wonder, after that game.

"If you wish for any conversation to aid your pondering, you need only ask me. I will gladly elaborate any point for you."

"That will not be necessary," answered Javert automatically, but it could have easily been deliberate. Valjean chuckled.

"The offer stands. Javert?"

"Hmm?"

"There is one last thing I would like to say for tonight."

Valjean's voice had lowered to a tone that made Javert shiver. That voice carried a biological power that made no sense to him. But then...the shivers were heightened as the factory manager took Javert's right hand into his own and planted...placed, gifted, offered, posed, enacted...???

"Don't bother with Adelbert. You are better off."

Javert yanked his hand back and sloshed through the snow to run home, not daring to look back to the source of the shivers that seemed intent to create more. His mind was blank. His hand was wet. When he arrived at the rented house, M. Arnaud was already asleep, so Javert went straight to bed. He had forgotten to turn off his clock.

The time was 9:43.


	10. Dreams to be Defined

 

Jean Valjean played with the keys in his coat pocket as he stood in the vestibule, in front of the door to his hard-won home. He had done it. Bastian was collared, and now he could choke him back into the routines of domesticity, the destruction of which had disfigured the future for which he was so desperately fighting. Domestics, just for now.

As for--

The plan was deliberately unstructured, because Jean fully admitted that Bastian made no sense to him. He needed flexibility in addressing whatever difficulties arose. Jeanne was not waiting for him, so she must have relented to Gerard bringing the man here and gone to sleep. He knew that Jeanne would be furious with him for bringing the man back, but she would see his reasoning soon enough. Her children still adored him, from how he put food on the table and doted on them (even though it was clear how that was merely to keep up appearances, to reduce suspicion if anyone caught him sneaking around with some girl (or boy, he learned!) that he had charmed).

His hand was cold--

They need to learn to live without him!, she will say. They were doing so well! But they weren't. He saw those moments of emptiness that possessed them every now and then, whenever their uncle failed to fill the void Bastian had only pretended to fill. This way, Jean could force him to keep up the charade until a proper husband could be found. He would happily allow the marriage to be 'annulled' at that time. If all else failed, at least the children could get a proper goodbye from their real father...

That horrified face--

Something was definitely "off" about his brother-in-law. He witnessed the most mundane of activity by the man and found himself shuddering. Something was, for lack of a better word, missing from his soul. Was that the way to say it? A touch of warmth, that spark of connection and investment, or perhaps it was how the man always thrust himself into center stage. Usually it was with a broad smile, maybe with a joke about Jeanne's overly fussy nature, and it almost never failed to charm his sons and daughters. But this same neediness for attention made itself apparent no matter who was around him. Bastian clammored for the eyes and ears of his 'dear friends', all with a gaze that would turn colder than death at the slightest threat to the adulation he so easily captured from so many people. The faro club was clearly not under such an illusion, but the children were, and that was to be put to use.

It was stupid--

Bastian would recognize when he was subjugated. But it was so pleasant to exist in this moment, that same surreal warmth of change that filled his stomach better than any meal.

But it was innocent--

Gerard would have put him in the guest room and logically tied him to the bed. The leather cuffs by the table would have tipped him off to that, if nothing else.

Lack of restraint--

He would sleep where Bastian was, outline the itinerary for him when the chloroform wore off, and explain it all to her in the morning.

If he had to touch him--

Now if he could just keep his thoughts from wandering long enough to--

"Then at least a kiss was a kind farewell." A breath more than a statement, it still filled the gaping void in the air that threatened to swallow the memory of his family's home every night. Good Lord, Jean Valjean. 

His impulse to 'bestow respect' on the poor, time-addled man would have its consequences tomorrow, and tonight already forced him to suffer suppressing the memory. He had to focus on Bastian. He had to rest, no matter how much he was bewildered by the cold warmth upon his lips. But he was restless...one last thought, a summary!

_Javert Courant...if I could heal you with a kiss on the other hand, then you would only have to ask for such medicine. But I fear I would kiss both, just to be safe. Beyond all odds, you have started to charm me! Maybe I feel that I know you better than anyone. Maybe I feel you are a complete mystery. Maybe we both really are insane. But what little glimpsed I've had into your soul have turned curious and engrossing. Your confident manner, your childish bewilderment, the untapped potential for embracing conscience as law...all of it afflicted from this tragedy of a miracle we share. And when your mind is healed and shaped at last, ah! the thought of such beauty! I will have to defend you from courting men and women alike!_

There. Enough of Marius's ghost. Time for bed.

Jean gently walked up the stairway and made the right turn into the guest room hallway. More specifically, the hallway for one guest room and one washroom. He opened the door to the guest room. He looked to the bed and found Jeanne sitting there, hands cradling Alexandre, looking eerily serene.

"I've decided to sleep in here tonight," announced Jeanne in the softest voice in which she could enunciate clearly. "This one has been fitful lately, and I don't want him to wake the poor dears."

Alexandre was sound asleep.

"Did Gerard come by earlier tonight?"

"Now that's a funny question. Why do you think he would come here at such a late hour? You don't even play cards with him or anything."

If ever there were any reason for doubt before, it was instantaneously dispelled by his sister's tone. But he wasn't ready to stop dancing around it.

"I hope the maid has been dutiful this evening."

"Of course. Euphrasie adores my little ones," Oh, the horrible, awkward placement of that name! "and she would never slouch for her own sake. Mon frère, you sound anxious."

Dragging this out was pointless, wasn't it? Yes. Both of them were getting tense.

"Why did you send him back, ma soeur?" She probably handled it simply: 'Just bring him to his home and let him rest with his face smothered in the pillow.'

Jeanne remained 'serene' in posture and gaze.

"I appreciate the thought. Really I do, especially the bruise on his face. You would never try to endanger us, just have him share his wages, help the maid, and play with the children. But I need to tell you something, something I had thought was perfectly clear a long time ago."

Jeanne stood up from the bed, turned to face it, and deftly, slowly, sweetly set her youngest son upon the cotton sheet. She then walked up to Jean, who didn't dare move an inch, and took his chin between her right hand's index finger and thumb.

Jean was in trouble. But even as his sister's gaze pierced his thoughts and left him defenseless before her, he still lingered just slightly upon the warmth still on his lips.

"My children and you are my life. Not him. I never want to see him within ten meters of this house, not after how he left. Not after how they worked so hard to do without. And you will obey me in this regard. I am your employer in this family; my wisdom is your law. Bastian will never set foot in our home again. Is that clear?"

Jean Valjean beheld before him someone entirely different than Jeanne Valjean-Dupont. This woman had enough spirit and self-control to overturn any demand set upon her, while Jeanne merely wanted everyone around her to be content. Who was this? Jean trembled before the only plausible implication: the transformed events of this life had transformed her as well. He was now responsible for what he had done to his sister, for better and for worse.

As for the mandate, it was clear, but it was not acceptable. Not only were there too many consequences to be had, but Jean himself could not stand for this happening within his own family.

"If you are worried about him acting up again--"

"You meant to collar him, correct? You don't trust him any more than I do, you proved that to me. But I don't want you to do that. So you won't do it."

"The children still miss--"

"And they will continue to miss him, my dear. I wish they had seen how he left the family, just so they would know who he really is. But you and I know. He is not staying here."

"You're overreact--"

"You haven't thought this through."

"But I--"

"You are not a father, Jean." Indignant fury seared his insides, harsh in its campaign but shut tight and incapable of being released. "If you were, you would be ashamed of this poor judgment on your part. I have said enough."

A few seconds passed with no retort.

"Please just--"

"Go to sleep, Jean. You've had a long day."

"Jeanne, this is--"

"Leave the room."

Jean Valjean felt that he should have gently embraced her, consoled her traumatic mind after seeing Bastian again so violently, and persuasively convinced her that controlling the madman in this manner was the best way to solve everything. But instead he watched himself obey his elder sister and leave the room.

As harsh words stormed within his mind, he realized that he had cursed to himself during the card game. Tonight was a mad night within an infinitely mad existence, but that was no excuse for profane descriptors. Did Javert curse as well? He couldn't remember. He would pray for the infraction and the serenity of their souls, and then he would go to sleep. His employer had demanded it, despite how the employee believed in the new project proposal.

But as he intellectualized the events at play, he realized a critical flaw: he had no proof. She had not seen Bastian collared and submissive to his family. No wonder she rejected it! Well, that was simply fixed, if not easily so. He would subjugate him in real time and show her the results, and then his niblings would have their father back until they could have a proper one. But he had acted too rashly.

Ambition was its own reward and its own punishment, apparently.

As his new plan was cemented, weariness finally smothered his brain without resistance. Jean Valjean quietly walked to his room, donned his nightwear, prayed by the bed, pulled the chamber pot to be by his face (in case he had the sewer dream again and needed to vomit), laid down on his side (the trauma of vomit filling his mouth and rudely awakening him had taught him a permanent lesson: never sleep on his back), and let his mind drift into the nether.

* * *

 

Fantine was clutching at his coat and sobbing, like four times before. By this point, he was long since in full realization that he was dreaming. The air of Montreuil-sur-Mer was dampened by the snow, but it still stank of bodily humors and ink. His clothes were heavy, wrapping around him as if to made his skin impenetrable, in particular the cravat squeezing his throat as a child would its guardian, to secure itself while borne upon the latter's back. His chest hurt, his legs were sore, his right arm ached, his face was sweaty, and his heart was pounding. Every element was present, and the rest of the dream could begin.

With practiced tolerance, he bore the tremendous pressure and weight of the duty he bore: weary empathy for this fallen woman who sought her child's safety, holy in her endless love; avoiding the Inspector who still refused to see the truth, which he now firmly believed to be in a world of his own; and anticipation of setting right the travesty he had let occur, from his own factory! Yes, it was all familiar and all terrible. This was the burden he was chosen to bear, and he knew the route for delivery better than the lines on his hands. Same old, same old, same old, same old, same old tragic beauty.

The dreaming man walked Fantine toward the hospital, his own thoughts starting to swirl as the solid tension of the scene became permeable. Javert was genuinely horrified at the events. What a fool, what a maddening, mindless fool! If he had a conscience, it was buried in sand and locked within a tomb, where he would never dare violate it as per the mandate to never disturb the dead. Yes, that was Inspector Javert, it was clear now.

Halfway to the hospital, he heard clumsy, rushed footsteps approaching him and his charge. Running in leather boots upon wet cobblestone produced these footsteps. Already he rememered what was to happen, and the disorientation of the conversation was prickling his face right on time.

"What about me?!", cried Javert.

Madeleine stopped in his tracks. Fantine remained silent, and wisely so.

"I trusted you! I adored you, from deed to duty to duncely belief. You were Abel! I never meant to be Cain, you must believe me! That woman must answer to society, as must we all. I am not an evil man, and yet you punish me!"

The world of Javert was curious in its own way. All activity in the real world was a reference to him, through the same mechanism that flapped his tongue and buttoned his coat.

"The Code must not suffer your foolishness, if you will forgive me saying so, Monsieur le Maire. Assault is a crime, and six months is a fair sentence. But you rebuked me, not just my discretion, but my soul! You treat me like an obstacle! What have I done to incur your wrath, Monseigneur?!"

Dong.

As was the same for the past four times, the sudden address of 'My Lord' perturbed Jean Valjean. Reverence was not appropriate to describe him, and certainly not in reference to being a 'man of the law'. Javert was raving.

Dong.

"My life is none of your business, and yet you condemn it!"

" _I did no such thing!_ "

Dong.

"Then treat me like a human being!"

"I do, and then you treat others like rabid dogs!"

Dong.

"Ah! Ah! What foam drips from my mouth, Monsieur?! You could not tell me. I am clean. This woman has blood on her hands! She is a criminal, and yet I am your victim! I know my blood leaves me suspect, but I had thought you better--"

Dong.

"THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH IT." How dare he?! Valjean was not that kind of person! Never!

Dong.

"Then why?! Why do you honor a woman like her? Is your reverence for others selected by a hallucination? What about me, Monsieur le Maire? Am I really nothing to you, so below contempt that a hussy is more worthy of your time?!"

Jean Valjean pushed himself off his right side as he said: "Make time for yourself in church, heathen!"

Dong.

Sunday morning, seven o' clock by the precious church bells. The sheets were clinging to him like a poorly designed dress. Jean Valjean wiped the sweat from his brow and brushed it against his nightshirt. He let the mental slime of anxiety slide and drip off his body as he dressed. As the Lord's day shined through the window, that emotion faded, and piety would take its place as it always did. Before he exited the room, he checked the ink reservoir on his desk. Full to the brim, excellent.

In the vestibule, he met Jeanne Valjean-Dupont, Euphrasie Sion, Hugo Dupont, Lucille Dupont, Albert Dupont, Adeline Dupont, Beatrix Dupont (Adelbert helped deliver her, and Jeanne chose a German name as a tribute), Michel Dupont, and Alexandre Valjean in Jeanne's grasp. Bastian was not there. He had to admit, the sight of that man would have marred the blessed sight. But in due time, it would seem perfectly normal to have him there, or better yet, some worthy fellow would fill the gap they all felt.

The children were groggy, having to be herded by their mother and the maid out the door. They would break their fasts afterward, and having seven (well, six, to be honest) children getting complacent with church was not going to happen. They would regain themselves as they sat in the pews, like they always did. Most everything was well, despite last night.

Jean Valjean led them to the church, shielding his eyes against the sun along the way.

* * *

 

Javert was not there.

Jean Valjean absent-mindedly answered a few sassy questions about the Bible from the children as they sat at the kitchen table. Breakfast was hearty and simple, but the time they spent together could not be contained in fifteen minutes or so. But after that service, he regretfully wished that it could. Why was Javert Courant not at church today, when he attended all the ones before?

Jeanne met eyes with him a few times, content and even mirthful, as if the last night had gone without consequence. But there was also a gleam in her gaze, not unlike a parent monitoring a usually delinquent child. The irony was stifling, and being under her thumb again, after gaining a factory for a source of income, was nothing short of humiliating.

He needed to clear his head.

"I thought I might meet up with a friend for lunch later today."

"Oh, that sounds nice!", commented Jeanne. "Some time away from your plans would do you good. What friend is this?"

"One of the factory workers, Courant. You haven't met him, but he's a good sort, and I'm fond of him." He felt a flush of warmth at the words, despite the nonchalant tone he chose. But his usual anxiety returned at the thought of what the man might be doing.

"Ah, yes, the cog maker. Mme. Gorbeau told me about him. Very quiet man, so I'm given to understand."

The children were starting to drum on the table in some irritating rhythm, forcing Jean to drop his fist loudly among the percussion, watching them uncertainly draw their hands back. Jeanne made no comment on the scene, and the boys started whispering to each other. The girls seemed split between listening to their guardians or eavesdropping on their brothers. Alexandre was nursing, unusually resilient to the noise.

"He has plenty to say, if you give him the right conversation."

"I'll remember that. Since you are fond of him, maybe he should drop by sometime."

Jean almost went cross-eyed.

"The thought never occurred to me," he shakily admitted. "I think he's a bit too shy for a house full of children."

The children stopped their conversations and threw several types of looks at their uncle, none of them appreciative of what he was saying. Jean stretched his lips into a wry smile.

"That's a shame," lamented Jeanne. "I'd be nice to see someone new in the house. Perhaps he could warm up to the idea."

"We'll see," offered Jean uncertainly.

The rest of breakfast went unremarkably.

* * *

 

After breakfast, Javert was easier to find than he thought. Probably for good reason, he suspected that his friend was working on the Lord's day. Sure enough, with a shovel in hand and his back to him, Javert was moving newly fallen snow off the beaten path leading away from the town.

"This is Sunday, Javert. You should be praying."

Javert froze. Out of the corner of his eye, Jean saw Anger and Beaumont walking together. Why would that be? But it didn't concern him.

"I am not angry with you, silly man, don't be so scared! But I must insist that you return home. Or come with me! I would like to honor this day with you, if you would have me."

Javert still did not move. Hesitantly, Jean Valjean walked over to Javert's front and saw his tightly shut eyes and loosened grip on the shovel.

"...Are you okay?"

Javert trembled ever so slightly. So that was a no, then. All Jean could do now was make a case for himself.

"...I am fond of you, Javert. You are an odd man, with some odder thoughts, but make no mistake: I have no poor opinion of you. You are honest and honorable, and you have a peculiar charm that I can't quite explain. And all this having borne the same fate as me. I respect you, and that is why I kissed your hand."

Javert remained meek, but as both of them stood awkwardly outside the town, an eyesore to any observer, Jean realized he had no real regrets of doing it. Javert was nervous, but he had acted honestly and complimented a man who had earned it.

"...Respect, you say," Javert finally answered. "You respect me?"

Jean suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. This was his fault, and he would face this honorably.

"Indeed I do."

Javert still seemed confused, although he did flush a little. Ah-ha! He knew it!

"If you respect me, then why a kiss? Why not simply say: 'I respect you' and have done with it?"

Of all the...he did roll his eyes that time. Javert saw it and...flinched?

"Because I am also fond of you," Jean answered quickly. He learned that Javert apparently had all the romance of a broken apple under a boot.

"But you said..." Jean was not helping him, not with how little he knew. "This sounds familiar. I think...ugh, I do remember this! I see this sort of thing all the time!"

What?

"Have I offended you?!"

"Yes! I-I, er, no! Maybe! Please don't do that again! If you wish to express something to me, use your words next time! I've seen too many relationships get murky from the obscurity of touch."

Obscurity?

"There was nothing obscure about that kiss. I believe I have made myself perfectly clear."

"You most certainly have not!", Javert declared angrily, only to visibly get flustered again. "I mean, you did just now, and it's... _last night, you were not clear. Last night was very unsettling for me._ "

And so the healing would begin here. Jean defly yet gently took the hand he kissed into his, knowing that Javert would not resist. Javert liked him as well, or he would have made it clear that he didn't by now.

"Then let today be pleasant." He planted another in the same place. "You know what this means now. Any questions?"

Jean took in Javert's face in that moment, just as shocked and disbelieving as before. But that shock and belief now came into clear understanding. Javert did not have a heart of stone, or wood, or ice. He had the heart of a child, stunted and punctured by twisted time.

"You said that you were fond of me, so why...why...oh. B-But you're a gentleman, you wouldn't...with me, even if we were discreet, that would...OH!"

Jean looked around both of them. No witnesses. No one would know but the two of them. Remorselessly, he pulled Javert to him and made a proper explanation of his intent. It took a while though, and more saliva was involved than he had expected. Only Javert's palm pushing against his shoulder brought him to his senses afterward. Sadly, they parted.

"I don't believe I need to explain what I meant by that." Javert looked like a deer in front of a poacher. "But just in case, I just felt like being a little playful." The sight of the snow around him instantly reminded him of his task. "But there will be time later. Have you thought about what I said last night? About God's law?"

"O-One thing at a time, for God's sake!"

Jean Valjean chuckled. Javert rubbed his face as if he had a rash. Jean touched his own lips...in that moment, his mind was as black as the sight of his eyelids. It was scary, truth be told. But the fear was already abating in favor of a hint of possession.

"I...I have determined that I...I..." Javert's breath was short and fast, forcing him to take time and calm himself. "I am loath to admit it, monsieur, _but I completely forgot what you said._ "

"..."

Words...what words could describe how exasperated he felt in that moment? Warm, chilly, relieved, but vastly and unignorably exasperated. That had to change. Forgetting something of that magnitude was not an acceptable quirk.

"No matter!", he forgave on this particular instance. "Starting today, we have a long, long, long time to discuss it all."


End file.
